


The Silence of Cries Unheard

by Kelaine (Ellynne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Belle and Will Scarlet friendship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 00:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 74,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4856165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Kelaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After exiling Rumplestiltskin at the town line, a devastated Belle tries to set things right. Meanwhile, Rumplestiltskin has found his own way back and has a new agenda.</p><p>Will Scarlet wants nothing to do with librarians or wizards. But, Rumplestiltskin is looking for a way back into town, and Will is too useful to ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Many Shades of Silence

I do not own Once Upon a Time.

X

"You're better off without him, Sister," Leroy told Belle as she sat at Granny's, staring at her iced tea. She'd thought of ordering something stronger. She'd thought of not ordering anything at all, just sitting there and staring at the glass of water already in front of her and watching the ice melt. But, she could imagine Granny fussing over her and asking more questions, questions she didn't want to deal with. So, she ordered an iced tea and stared at it instead while she waited for a hamburger and fries.

Leroy had sat down next to her. She heard him talking and knew she was making responses.

"How are you doing?"

"Fine."

"You feeling OK?"

"I'm fine."

And on and on. All of her conversations were like this lately. She didn't really need to say much. She didn't really need to listen. A few rote responses, and they kept going on their own.

"You did what you had to." That was a popular one. So was, "You didn't have a choice."

"You're better off without him." Leroy might be the first one to say it, but she had seen it in the eyes of everyone she passed. She heard it in the things they said and the things they didn't say.

"You're better off."

She wanted to pick up the iced tea and throw it at him. She wanted to smash the glass and then go on to break every glass and plate and anything she could get ahold of in the whole diner—maybe the whole town.

Instead, she sat there, looking at her tea. She waited till Leroy got up and left, telling her something—maybe to have a good day, maybe some promise that he'd be there for her, maybe just something about how his work here was done and now he needed to get back to whatever it was he really wanted to do. Belle didn't know and didn't care. She put down the money for the food and left before Granny came back with the burger.

There were other people who were harder to ignore. Keith, for example. He'd begun showing up when she least wanted to see him and couldn't take a hint and go away. She'd even started to discuss him with Emma one day.

"Emma, you know Keith Notting?"

"Oh, yeah," Emma said. "How's that working out?"

Belle had stared at her, not following. "Working out?"

"He likes you, doesn't he? Hook says he was scared to ask you out, but he told him to go for it. Seems like Keith tried, once, and Gold threatened to take him apart. I'm sorry, Belle," Emma added. "I didn't know Gold was like that. I should have but I didn't think—I thought you were in love. I didn't know."

Belle listened while Emma went on apologizing, beginning to understand. Emma thought Rumple had been isolating her, threatening anyone outside of a narrow few who tried to talk to her. Emma saw Keith's handsome face and well-trimmed hair and thought she saw a guy Belle would have wanted to go out with—if Rumple would let her.

 _No,_ she wanted to tell her,  _it wasn't like that._ She thought about trying to explain what Keith was—a man who thought any woman he met must be for sale—and what Keith had thought Rumple was—a man who would sell them—sell her.

That wasn't long after Rumple was gone. Belle hadn't learned how things had changed. She'd tried to tell Emma, stumbling through an explanation. But, she was so tired, and no one seemed to hear what she was saying to them anymore. Emma had nodded and said something about what a jerk Gold had been and she should have listened to Hook, and Belle gave up.

That's how it was these days. She didn't need to say anything. People had conversations with her in their heads, and the last thing they wanted was for her to interrupt with something that didn't fit what they knew she should say.

Belle remembered being locked in a cell with no one to speak to and no one to listen. She remembered when her memories were gone and all she had was a brief recollection of a man wielding fire. She had begged for answers. People had murmured lies about it being all in her head as they slid a needle full of drugs into her system, the easier to talk things over with her.

Nothing had really changed, she supposed. Belle was the third wheel in any conversation she tried to have, asking questions or giving answers no one really wanted to hear.

Leroy and Emma, at least, were sympathetic. Other people saw her reading through Rumple's books of magic and looked askance at her, whispering behind their hands.

"The Dark One's wife," she heard them whisper. "The Curse of Shattered Sight, they said it was that enchantress, but it wasn't. It was him. She knew all about it. . . ."

The wall of ice, the curse around the town, Cora, Regina, Tamara, Owen, Pan, all his fault, all his plotting. Much good it had done him.

Belle didn't argue with them, either.

At first, she'd hoped she'd find the way to release the fairies and anyone else trapped in the hat—find it  _quickly._  She'd go through the books, find the solution, and then—and then—

And then the fairies could take over whatever magic problems people in Storybrooke had. Belle would put up the "closed" sign in the pawn shop door. She'd go back to the house she hadn't set foot in since that day. She'd go through Rumple's things, give the fairies whatever bits of magic she thought they should have, put away the others somewhere safe, lock the doors, and. . . .

And do whatever needed to be done next.

Belle had asked Emma questions about her old job, about finding people. She'd thought she was being subtle, but Emma had given her a look. "You're not thinking of looking for him, are you?" she asked. "You'd have to leave the town to do it and you wouldn't be able to get back."

"I threw him out with nothing," Belle said. "I shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, please," Emma said. "Gold always lands on his feet. Or are you still scared of him? He's not coming back. You don't need to worry."

"I'm not scared of him," Belle said softly. "I was never scared of him."

Emma didn't seem to hear her. "And, even if he did come back, you've got friends, now. We'd take care of you. Speaking of, how are things with you and Keith? Hook told me Keith asked you out to the movies. You should have said yes. It's time to move on."

Movies? No, Keith had asked to come over to her house—Rumple's house. She wasn't sure which he'd wanted to paw over more, her or Gold's treasures. Keith had had some wild ideas about what he'd find there, some wild cross between Ali Baba's cave and a porn flick.

For once, her husband's reputation worked in her favor. She'd told him Rumple had put a spell on the place before he left, one that would transform anyone who set foot there without his permission. No, she didn't know how to take it off.

Belle thought he'd believed her. After all, she hadn't set foot in the house herself since she packed up a few clothes and brought them over to her small apartment over the library.

And, if he didn't believe her, she'd set locked the doors before she left and set the security bars on the windows. Rumple had made some improvements after the one time someone had been foolish enough to try breaking into his home.

Belle couldn't stand to sleep in their bed, one half of it painfully empty. She couldn't bear to look at all the small mementos he'd gathered over the years. She only knew the stories of a few of them and the memories were still enough to make her heart ache. Even worse was imagining someone like Keith groping and fondling them. The one-time sheriff would see nothing, she thought, nothing but bits of wealth or power. He wouldn't see the cherished echoes of a long, lonely life, the life of a man who had lost so much. . . .

And Belle had taken away the little he had left.

She wondered if Emma would bother to come if the place got broken into or if she would just tell herself whatever was happening was "for the best," the last memories of Rumplestiltskin being swept away from the town. The good sheriff could forget he ever existed if she hadn't forgotten already.

People were angry with Belle. Or angry with Rumple. It came to the same thing. They blamed him for the Curse of Shattered Sight. They blamed him for bringing them back here from the Enchanted Forest, never mind that it had been Snow who did that. They blamed him for the things Zelena had done and the things that witch had made Rumplestiltskin do.

There'd been no food or water in the cage Zelena kept Rumple in. There hadn't even been light in the storm cellar she'd used in this world—not even a blanket. Winter had been coming on, Belle remembered. Her breath had already been turning into mist that day they had trekked across the frozen ground before going down into that dank hole, so much colder than the field above. It had been midday. She could only imagine how cold it became at night.

There hadn't even been a blanket, she thought again. Not even straw to lie down on.

She'd sent him out into the world with nothing, not his winter coat, not even his cane.

She'd walked back to town, back to their house. She must have, not that she remembered it. What she remembered was sitting in their room, her feet aching, her head throbbing with a headache from hours of crying, looking at their empty bed. Belle remembered how tired she'd been. There'd been nothing in the world she'd wanted as badly as lying down and going to sleep.

But, she couldn't sleep there, not in that empty, lonely bed.

And, then, she’d thought of Rumple with nothing, no coat, no cash or credit cards.  She thought of how he had crumbled to the ground, his leg crippled without the magic that made him whole, and realized what she had done.

Once you crossed the town line, there was no way back.

She'd started to gather things—clothes, money, Bae's blanket from when he was a baby, the ball he'd played with as a boy. Last of all, she took the chipped teacup, wrapping it carefully. She'd put them in the car and, then, she'd seen the messages on her phone. People wanted answers—people _needed_ answers.

Belle had tried to give them. She'd made calls, she'd spoken with people face to face. Then, she'd gone home and looked at the car, wondering if she'd thought of everything. While she was thinking it over, her phone rang again. There'd been another crisis. Then, another.

It was always something. Children playing a stupid game had managed to cast a spell, and they'd needed Belle to undo it. Hook looking for his hand, that he swore Rumple had somewhere. Regina needing a magic root. Snow White needing a long lost hair.

And, then, Hook had remembered to tell them how the fairies had been trapped in the hat. They needed Belle to find a way to free them. No one else could.

Oh, there was Regina. But, powerful as the queen was, she had no mind for theory and the more complicated rules of magic. The few times Belle had tried to get help from her, the queen had wound up rolling her eyes and complaining about how Belle was as bad as Rumplestiltskin, going on about the useless details.

So, Belle struggled to find answers and to run a library and to deal with other problems as they came, one after the other. Every day seemed to bring new ones, the kind they would have once taken to Rumple to fix. Now, they brought them to Belle. Sometimes, she found answers.  Sometimes, she didn't. Looking over her limited supplies of potions and magical ingredients, there were more and more that she simply had to turn away. Some problems, after all, could be solved without magic. Others could be lived with. Still others came at prices that were much, much too high. Belle never did find the hand Hook swore had to be in the shop somewhere, but she wouldn't have dared try to put it back on him even she did. A malicious corner of her mind had already decided to send him to Dr. Frankenstein if the hand ever did turn up.

There were people now who spat on the sidewalk as she walked by. Keith snarled at her and asked why she thought was too good for him when everyone knew all she was was the Dark One's whore.

Belle knew where Rumple's gun was kept in the store. She hadn't taken it home with her, not yet. Part of her didn't want to admit things might be that bad. Another part of her remembered Rumple telling her to take it, to keep it with her in case Hook came after her. Instead, she'd let Hook get ahold of it. He'd shot her in the back after she'd begged Rumple not to kill him.

Emma said he'd changed.

She'd heard Hook talking to some friends (Keith was in the group) telling them about how Rumple had almost killed him that day in the tower. But, the story was different than what happened. Somehow, in his version, Hook was the hero who'd known the Dark One was up to something. Belle was the hapless fool who would have been destroyed (along with the rest of the town) if Hook hadn't stepped in to save them.

Then, Hook had seen her. He'd given her a drunken smile and called out, "Hey, Mrs. Gold, come say hello to my friend, Keith. As a favor to me. You owe me one."

Belle had ducked quickly into Tom Clark's store, but Hook and Keith walked in after her. Belle had a brief vision of telling Tom some men were following her and Tom, all helpful, telling her she should let Hook look after her. Instead, she looked down an empty aisle and broke into a smile as if she'd seen her best friend. "Emma! There you are! I was looking all over for you!"

Hook and Keith turned around and left.

She wanted to get in the car (Rumple's car), drive away, and never come back.

She wanted to free the fairies and let them take over the job of picking and choosing who to help.

And, more than anything, she wanted to take Rumple's magic globe, to ask—to  _beg_ , if she had to—for Henry to give her the drop of blood that would show where his grandfather had gone.

"This is your fault," Hook told her when he and Charming dragged her away from the library. Students with homework they needed help to finish glared at her as she left. "If Rumple were here, he'd have this fixed already."

Belle went hot then cold. "Rumple's not here," she reminded him. "I sent him away."

"You didn't have to," he said. "You had the dagger. You could have controlled him."

"He's got a point," Charming said. "So long as you kept him on a leash, we could have really used his help."

Controlled him.

Used him.

 _Leashed_  him.

Like Zelena.

Belle swallowed. "The memories I have from Lacey," she said. "Made me think people in this world didn't like slavery." A lie. And not a lie. Lacey barely remembered anything from school. Belle wasn't sure if she knew there'd been a civil war in this country, much less what it had been fought over. But, Belle had learned enough on her own about this world to think it was a good point—and to remind Charming David Nolan believed it—maybe both sides of him believed it. If he would only listen to what she said instead of filling it in with what he thought she should say.

Hook rolled his eyes. "It's not slavery, it's the  _Dark One._  Anyway, it doesn't matter.  _You_  sent him away."

There was this much that was good about that conversation, Belle thought afterwards. Some of the terrible pain at sending Rumple away had eased. A little. Just a little. Now, she knew there was something worse she could have done to him.

She'd been angry and hurt when she did it. She'd been horrified at what she'd walked in on. Rumple had been about to murder a man, to murder Hook, the man Emma loved (whatever Belle thought of him personally). He'd lied to her. He'd deceived her—deceived everyone—He'd  _hurt_ them—

But, sending Rumple away was better than keeping him here.

If she'd kept him here, the others would have insisted she use the dagger to control him.  Their pet Dark One, to jump up and do tricks when they called him.

No, she thought. They'd already insisted on that. When they let Regina take the dagger. When Regina had given it to Belle instead of Rumple. It had been implicit, hadn't it? She was to control him, to “keep him on a leash.”

They'd put Zelena in a cell with a bed—and blanket—and lights and food and water. So, she could be comfortable while they figured out what to do with her.

Meanwhile, Rumple had been saved from Zelena. They let him out of his cage. He was allowed to change and clean up. They were even happy for him.

So long as he stayed on his leash.

Whatever was happening to him in the outside world (she knew he was alive or his name would have faded from the dagger, but that was all she knew), no one was controlling him, no one was  _leashing_ him, making him a slave with less freedom than the lowest beast.

 _I only see the Beast._ Belle winced as she remembered those words.

If she left Storybrooke, she’d never be able to return.  There were things she couldn’t leave undone.  Free the fairies, she told herself. Let them do what they were trained to, give the help they needed to give. Then, she could leave. She could find Rumple and be done with this.

And if he wanted nothing to do with her?

He wouldn't. It wasn't just what she'd told him at the border, that he'd never given up power—or anything else—for her. It was that she spent her nights haunted by other memories—the memory of the look on Rumple's face as tried to fight Zelena's command and told her to run, the pain and fear as he handed her his gun and told her to stay safe while he hunted Hook, the way he'd held her when he'd seen her alive after believing she was dead for so long—those memories told her she'd been wrong.

Wrong, she thought. Maybe not to send him away. But, for the reasons she sent him away. For what she'd said when she sent him away. For what she'd believed. And what she hadn't believed.

Why would he want anything to do with her?

She'd at least give him the things she should have given him before, things to make living in this world easier, bearable.

And the things that meant more to him, no matter what he said. Belle picked up the blanket and the leather ball. She looked through the small collection of photos from Baelfire's brief time in Storybrooke. More than money—more than the cane he wouldn't have been able to walk without—these were the things she should have given him—the things that, somehow, someday, she  _would_ give him.

And, after that. . . .

She supposed it didn't really matter. There were millions of people in this land. She'd be just one more of them, a face in the crowd, invisible, unimportant.

No Keiths troubling her, no irate neighbors blaming her for the miracles she couldn't produce. Ignored, she thought. Invisible—Invisible because they didn't know her and she didn't matter, not because they looked right at her and couldn't even see her. If she had no one to talk to, at least she wouldn't have to sit and listen to people who thought they were talking to her while ignoring everything she had to say.

And no one telling her she was better off.


	2. Night Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will isn't the sort to get involved when he sees Belle attacked.

His name wasn't Will Bloody Scarlet.

Was there anyone who couldn't figure that one out? Who named a kid Will Scarlet?  _Scarlet._ Come on. Even the blokes in this world knew better, and they didn't even think he was real. They had maybe a dozen stories how Will Scarlet joined up with the Merry Men and got dubbed by Robin Hood. Most of them didn't mention how much drinking had been going on, but like it wasn't obvious.

But, hey, there were worse names. Tinkerbelle, for example. Or Hook. The bad jokes that could be made out of  _Scarlet_  were absolutely nothing compared to the bad jokes that could be made out of  _Hook,_ even if you left out the dirty ones (not that he meant to). In this world, where stories had a way of turning out to be true, he wondered what the odds were some perverted pirate would go all Peeping Tom on kids parked in lover's lane and get his hook caught in the car door right before they hit the gas and tore it off. It had to be destiny, right?

All the same, there was a mindset that went with being  _Will Scarlet_ —the mindset that went with anyone willing to trot after Robin of Locksley, looking all cheerful while the Sheriff's men were shooting at you and having to mean it. It meant the right walk and the right talk. It meant a mouth that bypassed the brain and said, "Sure, let's go break into a dragon's castle and cart off her gold. She won't mind," or "Why wouldn't I want to break into a mental asylum and ask a girl there to go out with me? It's not like there's anything on telly." Above all else, it was the mindset that mattered—even if it was a mindset where you had to keep your brain turned off so it would never ask how you got so stupid _._ You had to think it and breathe it to make it work.

Mind you, the leather jacket helped.

So, call him Will Scarlet. He didn't mind. It beat Eugene Fitzherbert any day.

Will Scarlet was also the kind of love struck idiot—as in looks-up-with-his-mouth-open-when-it's-raining-till-he-drowns idiot—who would get exiled to another world (the kind of world run by murderous witches, crime lord caterpillars, and jabberwockies who tried to kill you every other week) just to do right by the girl of his dreams, only to have her dump him or (oh, yeah, don't forget this part) throw him into another world.

So, he had no intention of getting involved with anyone in Storybrooke, Wonderland, Oz, Timbuktu, or anyplace else—especially not the woman stepping out of the pawn shop late that night. There was trouble in heels, no doubt about it. He was hanging out for purely business purposes only, thank you very much. Once Belle Gold closed the store and went home, there would finally be  _no one_ out on the street. All the stores would be empty, and an honest thief could do some late night shopping in peace.

He couldn't believe how long it was taking Mrs. Gold to lock the door. Could she not find the keyhole? What was her problem?

Calm, he reminded himself. Things always seemed to take longer when you got impatient. That's how idiots made mistakes (like ignoring the gold and taking something the dragon would  _really_ miss when you robbed her place).

But, that was when Keith decided to come along. Keith Notting, because no imagination was apparently part of the package deal if you were going to be an evil queen coming up with names for people under a curse. Now, Keith Snotting, that would have been a good name. Or just Keith Snott. Simple, easy to remember, and spot on.

Will had a moment to wonder why the town's most lecherous drunk (really, give the guy a few too many, and he'd come onto a lamppost) was wandering around town this far from The Rabbit Hole at this time of night. Maybe he'd staggered out by accident and been too drunk to find his way back. Then, he saw Keith-the-Snot coming up behind Mrs. Gold.

It wasn't his business, he told himself. It  _really_ wasn't his business. He remembered what happened the last time he and Mrs. Gold had met, and he had no desire to repeat it. It wasn't like he owed her anything.

But, then he saw Keith shoving her back into the doorway and snarling at her. Will caught pieces of it. ". . . . Stop being so high and mighty, now he's gone. . . . owe me for what he did. . . . be wishing he gave me the twenty minutes when I'm done. . . ." It got clearer the closer Will got. By the time Snotting said the last, Will was almost behind him, just a little to the side.

He hadn't decided to get involved. He knew he hadn't. But, somehow, his feet decided otherwise. He should have known better than to trust them. They never were on his side.

Snot-for-brains Keith had a hand clamped over Mrs. Gold's mouth. He was pressing in tight against her. Will could see her trying to fight him off, but, she was pinned tight against the door. She hadn't seen Will yet. His feet had almost decided to bring him in close enough he would  _have_ to do something when Mrs. Gold pulled a hand free.

Will expected to see her hit Keith, to claw him, or even (this would be good) pull a gun on him. Instead, she reached for the door handle behind her. It swung inward. She was able to pull away, stepping out of Keith's grasp. But, the drunk staggered after her, swearing terribly (seriously, Will could swear better than that in his sleep. And probably had). Mrs. Gold grabbed something big and heavy and swung it at Keith. Keith didn't so much duck as stumble drunkenly under it. By rights, he should have collapsed on the floor and not gotten up, but Snotting's liver was putting up a tough fight, keeping him just sober enough to keep moving. He came up, fist clenched, and knocked Mrs. Gold to the ground in the half-second it took Will's feet to launch him at the man.

X

She should have stopped at Granny's and grabbed something to eat, Belle thought, as she fumbled with the keys in the pawn shop door. Her head throbbed as it did too often these days when she forgot meals. But, she could feel people looking at her at the diner and hear the whispers behind her back. It was getting worse. Or she was getting more tired. Either way, it was getting harder and harder to stare at a meal and pretend it meant nothing to her.

Still, she could have called up and asked Ruby to make her a lunch for takeout—or an afternoon snack—or dinner—or a late night snack. But, there was always so much to do. She'd given the Charmings five different potions this week and identified twelve different spells. She'd researched more mundane problems, like the town's census (to see if there was anyone else in town who shouldn't be there) and records on topography and geological surveys (to help the Dwarves). Today, she'd told herself she was finishing the inventory of potion supplies, trying to avoid angry, would-be customers.

Magic came with a price, she'd tried to explain to them. Just because Rumple wasn't there to demand it of them didn't mean it wouldn't come due. If it was something that could be taken care of without magic, she tried to point them in the right direction—Dr. Whale, Archie, the exercise and weight loss books in the library. But, the people she turned away were the ones who whispered behind her back or "accidentally" shoved her as they passed.

It wasn't just about Rumple. They'd been torn out of their lives and woken up after twenty-eight years in this town. They'd nearly been killed by witches, giants, and Peter Pan. Then, they'd been sent back to their homes only to be torn out again and sent back to this land. The ice wall might be gone, but they still remembered Ingrid's curse. They remembered what it was to turn on their friends and family, screaming out whatever small hates had hidden in the dark corners of their hearts before just attacking the people closest to them.

Belle had slept through all that. She didn't know,  _couldn't_ know what it had been like—

" _I'm afraid," Rumplestiltskin said. She saw the fear in his eyes. More than that, she saw the pain as she turned against him, one more in a long line, forcing him over the line._

No, she couldn't know what that was like.

Her hands shook as she tried to find the keyhole. It was hard to think when her head hurt like this, hard to hold her hands steady when she hadn't eaten since—since—was it yesterday? She'd started to fix tea this morning, but the Sheriff had called. Someone had found what might be a memory stone of Ingrid's. Belle had turned off the stove and run over, hoping for some new revelation that would help them at last (it wasn't one of Ingrid's stones, it was just a bit of rose quartz from a sixth grader's science display that a second grade girl had stolen because it looked pretty, only to lie when she thought she was caught).

Finally, the key slipped into place and she was about to turn it when a man stepped up behind her.

"Hey, witch, remember me?" Keith, once the Sheriff of Nottingham said, shoving her up against the door, his hand clamping over her mouth. "Your boyfriend broke a deal with me. I've come to collect." He reached up under her skirt, fumbling to pull down her nylons and panties.

He meant to do it here, Belle realized, out here on the street. It was late. Drunk as he was, maybe he thought no one would see him, if he was thinking at all. Maybe he thought no one would care once they saw it was her.

Maybe he was right.

Belle tried to push him away, to get a knee in his groin,  _something_. But, she could barely move.

Her arms were pinned back by his weight. His one hand was still held tight over her mouth and the other was still busy with her clothes (her struggles were doing this much good; drunk as he was, he couldn't seem to keep a good grip on her underclothes as he tried to pull them all the way down). She twisted, and his grip loosened for a moment. Belle pulled her hand free.

Space, she thought. If she just had space. Space to fight him, to grab something to defend herself, to just grab the phone and call for help. She grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open, backing away from him.

Keith lurched drunkenly after her. Belle grabbed a bronze bookend and swung. But, the fates seemed to have it in for her. He stumbled as he came at her. She missed him entirely.

But, he knew what she'd done. Or tried to do. Raging incoherently, he punched her in the face. Belle was knocked to the ground, losing her grip on the bookend. It slid across the floor, out of reach. She was stunned, knowing she should get up, get ready to fight; but her body wouldn't respond.

Then, she heard Keith cry out. She saw him crash to the ground, another man on top of him. The man's fist connected once with Keith's face, and Keith's eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

Will Scarlet, the man she'd last seen drunkenly curled up around a copy of T _hrough the Looking Glass,_ a picture of the Red Queen torn out and clutched in his hand, had his fist drawn back, ready to land another blow. He stared at the unconscious man as though not sure what to do next. "What, that's it?" he said. He shook Keith. "Hey, Snotting," he said. "There's Robin Hood over there with his wife, Marian. They're making out. In public. Aren't you going to do something about it?" He shook Keith again. "Bloody hell," he grumbled, getting off him.

He looked over at Belle. She could see he was ready to say something flippant. She could almost see the bad joke coming together in his eyes, till he looked at her face and froze.

No, not her face. The side of her face. Where Keith had hit her. "Uh . . . hi," he said. He nodded towards her face. "Does that, uh, hurt? Much? I mean, I can see it hurts. But, is it bad? You want to go to hospital or something? The emergency clinic ought to be open if Whale's sober. Or you just want to call the sheriff?"

Belle looked at Keith and imagined calling Emma. Would she even be at the station or would she already be home? Or on a date with Hook? Would he come along with her if she called them? And what would he do when saw his good buddy lying unconscious on Belle's floor?

"No," she said. "We can't do that. Just—just let him go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it may not look like it at this point, but this is a Rumbelle story. Belle and Will are NOT going to become a couple. I feel like I really need to say that.


	3. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is put out with the trash.

Will stared at Mrs. Gold. "Sorry, it sounded like you just said you didn't want me to call the sheriff." He looked at Keith uncertainly. "You planning on just burying him in the basement? Or, you're friends with the werewolf, aren't you? You giving her a midnight snack? Just make sure she gets rid of all of him herself, not that I ever eat the meat pies at Granny's. . . ."

Mrs. Gold shook her head. Will realized how tired she looked, like just that little head shake was the same as running a marathon—or more like collapsing at the end of the marathon. "I can't call the sheriff on him," Belle said, as if patiently explaining the obvious. "He's a friend of her boyfriend."

"Yeah, so? You're a friend of the sheriff's, ain't ya? Babysit her little brother all the time and stuff. Or is this some stupid hero thing? Let your enemies go and hope they'll be nicer next time? Speaking as someone with a  _lot_ of enemies, it doesn't work that way."

Mrs. Gold shrugged wearily. "It doesn't matter. She'll listen to him," Belle said. "She won't listen to me."

Will wanted to argue that, yes, it did matter. Storybrooke's sheriff might not be the brightest (she was a  _sheriff_ , just having that job title sucked off ten, maybe twenty IQ points—and that was after you were dumb enough to let someone stick you with it in the first place), but she wasn't an idiot. And she didn't just stand around and let people get hurt (unless you counted taunting them with food when she had them in the town jail, not that Will had wanted to share a meal with her anyway. Talk about germs).

But, Mrs. Gold looked ready to collapse. And the bruise on her face needed ice on it right away while they were wasting time arguing. And he could already tell he could talk till he was blue in the face, he wasn't going to win this one. "Fine," he said. "But, we're leaving him in the alley. People don't ask questions about guys in the alley the way they do about guys outside your front door on Main Street."

Will dragged Snottingham out. He groaned a few times but didn't wake up. Will debated just dropping him in the alley. But, drunk as the Snot was, he'd probably be sick a few times before morning came. Mrs. Gold didn't look like she'd be happy to find the guy choked during the night. It would be like that market Will passed through in that village Robin's newest recruit, Mulan, came from. Will had seen a woman burning what they called "ghost money." He remembered the paper smelled of myrrh and incense. She'd found a dead cat by her market stall and was burning the ghost money as an offering, to appease the cat and keep it from coming back as an angry spirit.

Of course, a couple years later, he'd heard about an angry demon rampaging through the place. But, that had been a dog, not a cat. So, maybe the ghost money worked.

He wasn't going to burn any offerings for Snotting no matter what he came back as. Better to just keep him alive. For now.

So, he propped him up in a sitting position, making sure he faced east (so he'd notice the sun first thing in the morning when his hangover kicked in). Then, Will went back inside. He'd seen the small fridge in the back room on his way through with Snot. A quick check showed it had a single ice tray in its tiny freezer.

Will filled up a plastic bag and brought it out. He found Mrs. Gold leaning against the counter. She was shaking, her eyes closed. Aftershock, he told himself, pushing down a sudden lurch of fear. She was fine. She  _had_ to be fine.

Knowing that didn't keep the note of fear out of his voice. "Mrs. Gold?"

Her eyes flew open and she went stiff, like a deer hearing the hunter's hounds. He saw the fear in her eyes as she looked at him uncomprehendingly, as if she were trying to remember who he was and what he was doing here.

Will held up the plastic bag. "I've got some ice," he said, trying to sound innocent and nonthreatening. "You want to put it on that bruise? And—and maybe lie down? And have a cuppa?"

She looked at him as though she still didn't understand what he'd said. Then, slowly, his words seemed to sink in. She nodded warily, accepting the ice. Her hands shook as she took it from him. He remembered the way she'd struggled to get the door locked. Snot's attack hadn't helped, but this _wasn't_  just aftershock. "You can lean on me," he offered uncertainly. "Uh, I'm a married man," he added. "I'm not going to do anything that would make anyone think I'm like the Sheriff of Nottingham, all right?"

Mrs. Gold nodded slowly and took his arm, letting him help her. Watching her almost as warily as she did him, he helped her sit down on the small bed in back, just waiting for her to take that the wrong way. But, either Mrs. Gold was beginning to trust him (a little) or she'd used up all the fear she had. Will was betting on the latter. He remembered times like that. Oh, boy, did he remember them.

He found a couple of large, throw pillows that wouldn't have been out of place in a genie's lamp, and put them on top of the more ordinary pillow at the end of the bed. "You'll want to keep your head elevated," he told her. "It'll keep the bruising down."

There was a quilt folded up at the bottom of the bed. Will picked it up and started to tuck it gingerly around Mrs. Gold’s shoulders, trying not to scare her. That was when he saw the gaping hole in her nylons. It went from the side along her knee—about four inches wide, easily—and seemed to be getting wider as it vanished beneath the hem of her skirt a few inches above. Will tried to remember what could have happened during the brief fight. She hadn't even landed on that side when she fell down, had she? She didn't seem to be bleeding, at least. "Did you hurt yourself?"

Mrs. Gold looked down at her leg, to see what he was staring at. "What? Oh. No. Keith must have done that. When he. . . . At the door. He tried. . . ." She finished with a shrug. Not important that shrug said. Didn't matter. Don't talk about it.

Will thought about going back into the alley and finding Snotting.

No. Mrs. Gold needed his help right now. And Snot wasn't going anywhere.

Will would take care of him later.

X

Belle pulled the quilt tight around her, covering her leg. She felt the cold right down to her bones, and the ice bag on her face wasn't helping. She tried to concentrate on the man fiddling around Rumple's shop. He was bigger than her, she thought. Much bigger. And he moved like a fighter. She wondered if she had traded Keith for something just as bad. Probably not worse. She didn't see how he could be worse.

Still, she made a small, protesting noise as he began looking through the cupboards. She knew some of the things ( _some_ , she thought bitterly) Rumple kept there.

"You have any food back here?" Will asked.

Food. Rumple had always kept a little back here, nothing fancy, just emergency supplies for late nights. Or for when the town about to be annihilated, she thought, remembering him pouring her a drink at the end of the world.

 _I didn't want to wake you up just to die,_ he'd said.  _But, I needed you._ She remembered the raw pain in his voice, the same pain she'd heard as she forced him across the town line.

Her own voice, ugly with anger, echoed in her memory.  _I just wanted to be chosen._

_I needed you._

Most of the food was gone, nibbled on or spoiled. Bread molded fast in Maine's damp air. She'd meant to buy more, part of a growing list of things she'd had to put aside for bigger problems that kept getting in the way. "That cupboard, over there. I think there are some crackers. Maybe." While Will walked over, she looked at the alarm clock by the bed. Belle was too tired to leave. She might be too tired to get up and see if Will had locked the back door. She checked the setting on the clock—horribly early, but there was so much to get done—and switched it on.

Will opened the cupboard and found the large, nearly empty box. Looking inside, he said, "Yeah, I see the crackers, all five of them." He handed the box to her and began to fish through his jacket pockets. After a moment, he produced a plastic baggie with a squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Digging around in his other pocket produced a bag of peanut butter M&M's. He gave both to her.

Belle pushed back the plastic. The jelly, showing through the flattened bread, looked like a huge bruise. She wondered if her face looked any better. Then, the smell of it hit her, and her stomach clenched.

 _Not fair,_  she thought. Her stomach was tied up in knots after—after what happened. Almost happened.  _Hadn't_ happened, she told herself firmly.

She'd been like this in the Ogre War. There had been days when the news was bad from the front or worse days when there hadn't been any news at all, when they could only watch the red haze of battle coming closer and hope. She remembered being sick with worry, unable to do more than pretend to eat her food. She remembered the terribly guilt she'd felt, knowing how their supplies were dwindling, but still unable to do more than cut it into smaller and small pieces, moving them around her plate. That's why she'd worn the yellow dress to that last council meeting. Normally, she needed to be corseted almost within an inch of her life to fit into it. That day, it had been the only one of her court dresses that didn't need to be taken in.

Belle thought she was thinner now than she'd been then. It was hard to tell. There'd been no scales in the old world, and so many of the tools they used to measure here were different. All she knew for certain was that she hadn't felt her ribs the way she did now. She let the bruised sandwich drop back into her lap.

Will cleared his throat. "Don't tell anyone, but Much—he's one of Robin Hood's men—used to get sick after every fight. He was fine during them. But, after, the rest of the band would be eating and celebrating, and he'd volunteer for sentry duty so he could get as far away from food as possible.

"Marian used to fix him a tea. I don't know what all she put in it, but it had chamomile and mint. You've got some of that here. Let me brew it up for you. You shouldn't have regular tea, anyway. The last thing you need is caffeine."

As always, these days, Belle felt too tired to argue. But, for once, she wasn't sure she wanted to. He had a point, better than he knew. She practically lived on tea, these days, forcing herself to keep going. Chamomile and mint tea, her mother had made that for her, too, when she was ill. "I'd appreciate that," she told him. "Thank you."

After a few minutes, Will handed her a cup (not the chipped one, she'd hidden that away where she didn't have to see it every day and could almost pretend it didn't mean anything to her). Belle took a sip and grimaced. "You put in too much honey."

"Not enough," Will said. "You need the calories from the look of you. And honey will settle your stomach, that's what my old auntie used to say. It's staying down, isn't it?"

Belle gave him a Look on principle, but he was right. The knots in her stomach were easing. She drank all the too-sweet tea in the cup as well as the second and third he poured for her. When she tentatively bit into the sandwich, it stayed down, too. Taking only small bites and chewing them slowly, she eventually made it through. The smell of chocolate was too much for her, though. She handed the M&M's back to Will. "Thanks," she said. "But, I can't."

Will didn't look happy, but he took them. Belle settled on finishing up the saltines while Will poured her another cup. "Do you always carry your lunch with you?" she asked.

"Oh, you know," Will said. "A bloke might find himself in a cell with an evil sheriff taunting him with pop tarts or pastrami. Better to be prepared. Or he might have been just about to eat when he got chased by some bloke with funny ideas about where his wallet might be and have to put it away for later."

Belle yawned. She had to get up and check the locks, she thought. But, she could still sit here just a little longer. Speaking of locks. . . . "Why did you break into my library?" There were other questions behind that one.  _Is it safe to let you be here, in this shop? Is it safe to be here with_ you,  _the madman who cries over story books?_ _Not things she could ask.  Especially if the answer was, “No.”_

"Oh," he said. "That." He had the uncomfortable look of a man who didn't want to answer a question his conscience was telling him he should.

 _Does he have a conscience?_ Belle wondered. She didn't think he was lying—but she didn't think he was telling her the truth, either. Still, he'd saved her from the Sheriff of Nottingham, hadn't he?

She'd thought Rumple had saved her from the Queens of Darkness, once, that he'd given up a magic gauntlet he'd fought Merlin and the knights of the Round Table to gain. She thought he'd been willing to sacrifice it to save her life.

She'd been wrong.

"Everyone here has a story, don't they?" Will said. "Even if it's just that they're the stupid kid who lets the Ogre into the house, so the hero can fight it later. My story's stupider than most. You've heard of Wonderland? Not just that book in your library. The place, the real place?"

Belle felt a chill, like someone stepping on her grave. "Cora lived there," she said. "The Queen of Hearts. She trapped the Mad Hatter in Wonderland till the curse took him away." She'd tried to murder Rumple to steal his power. She'd nearly done it, too.

And, when Cora was minutes away from killing him, all Rumple had wanted to do was talk to Belle. She had lost her memories and was confused—no,  _terrified_ —by the things she'd seen in Storybrooke. He'd used almost his last breath to try and help her make sense of her life, to understand who she'd been and to see herself as he saw her.

A hero, he'd called her. And the woman who'd loved him, who'd really,  _really_ loved him.

He'd lived. He always lived. Even when he hadn't, terrible as the cost had been, Rumplestiltskin _lived._  That was what she told herself each night when she crawled into bed or fell asleep over a pile of books, looking for answers. Even without magic, without money or anyone to help him, Rumple would be all right. Because he had to be. She couldn't keep going if she stopped believing that.

"Yeah, that's the place," Will said. "And that's Wonderland all over. What did somebody call it, once? A really  _annoying_ world. You have to be crazy to  _want_ to go there. But, I guess I was." He gave her a cocky, self-effacing grin. "Maybe I still am. There was this girl, Anastasia. Ana. You ever meet someone who, the moment you see them, you know you're whole life has changed, forever?"

Belle thought of a war ravaged castle, the smell of smoke and blood in the air, and the mocking salvation that had appeared when all hope was lost—even if it was at a price.

_It's forever, dearie._

"Yes."

Will looked at her, surprised. "Really? 'Cause, it wasn't like that when I met her. I  _know_ it wasn't. I said something stupid. I tried to act tough to this other guy—not because I was trying to impress her, just because I felt like it. Bloody hell, I was solid idiot from top to bottom. If she'd had any sense, she would have hit me over the head with a rock—there were a lot of rocks lying around, she could have had her pick—and stomped off. Don't ask me why she didn't.

"But, it's never like that when I look back. When I think about it, when I remember seeing her for the first time, all I can remember is that was the first time I knew there was a world with her in it. I know I didn't feel that way, then. I  _know_ it. But, it doesn't matter. I think about her and I feel it all over again.

"Ana, she wanted to run away to a new world, a place to start over. But . . . it's harder than you think, starting again. Being in a new world, having nothing, no friends, not even knowing the rules everyone else takes for granted—FYI, never make deals with giant caterpillars if you don't have to, it never ends well—well, like I said, it's a lot harder than you think. Ana was ready to give up, to go home.

"Only, then, this other bloke came along and offered her everything she'd ever wanted. Everything she thought she'd wanted. He made Ana a queen, the Red Queen of Wonderland. And, me, well, ask anyone over there, Will Scarlet was just a knave."

 _It's harder than you think, starting again. Being in a new world, having nothing. . . ._ Belle closed her eyes, feeling the dull pain in her cheek and jaw. _I just wanted to be chosen._

She heard Rumplestiltskin's voice answering back.  _I needed you._

"I'm sorry."

Will looked embarrassed. "That wasn't the end of it," he said. "Things happened. A lot of things. I thought . . . I thought we'd got past it. All of it. Only I'm here and Ana's . . . not." He shrugged again.

"You got dragged here, when the curse was recast?" Belle asked.

"Uh . . . not exactly. See, I told you, I'm stupid. I'm  _really_ stupid. I thought we'd got past all our problems. Maybe we had. So, I went and dragged in some new ones. The Missus and me, we had a knock-down, drag-out fight. She threw me out, straight from one world into another. And, here I am. Unless I find a way back." 

Belle remembered the look on Rumplestiltskin's face as she forced him over the border.  _Do you want to go back to her?_  She thought but didn't ask. _Why should you after she did_ that _to you?_

She could barely keep her eyes open, exhaustion and shock catching up with her. Belle leaned against the pile of pillows.  _Just for a moment_ , she thought.

She imagined leaving Storybrooke and finding Rumple (alive and well, he  _had_ to be alive and well). She would bring as much gold and money and other valuables as she could fit into his car and the trailer she meant to attach to it. His spinning wheel, Belle thought muzzily, she mustn't forget Rumple's spinning wheel. Or Bae's blanket. Or the leather ball Bae had played with as a child. Or any of the few belonging's Neal had brought with him that were still in the small apartment that had been the only thing Neal was willing to accept from his father during the brief time he was here—Neal had tried to insist on paying rent. That argument hadn't ended well.

Or it was the only thing Neal had accepted until Rumple died to save them.

Although, in the end, Neal hadn't been able to accept that, had he? He had to give the gift back.

She had to give Rumple what was his. Even if it wasn't enough. Even if he spat in her face when saw her or ripped her heart out, a messier process in the World Without Magic. But, he had the right, didn't he?

After all, it was what she'd done to him.

X

Mrs. Gold barely noticed as the teacup slipped from her hand. Will caught it. He lifted her legs onto the bed, unbuckling the high heels and placing them neatly on the floor. He straightened the quilt and tucked her in. Will looked at her uneasily, feeling guilt for what he was about to do.

It wouldn't hurt her (or it wouldn't unless— _until_  she'd figured out what he'd done and knew she'd been betrayed. Again). But, it didn't make a difference, he told himself. He had to do this.

It wasn't like he could tell her what he needed.

Will didn't expect to get everything he wanted, not anymore. However fairy tales got written, he was pretty sure he was penned in on the losing side. But, there were some things he still had to try. With luck (the kind of luck he never seemed to have lately), maybe Mrs. Gold  _wouldn't_  ever know what he'd done.

Will looked around. He had a store to rob.


	4. Tangled Webs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumplestiltskin goes to the library. Will goes shopping. Keith's smell is improved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate universe to what happened in season 4. Only Maleficent appears but she's based more on the glimpses we had in the past three seasons. I started work on this before we knew her story line that season.
> 
> Also, I am not personally familiar with the New York Public Library, although I did look at a few pictures online. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a subbasement where things like furnaces and heating systems go, but I didn't actually see one on the floor layouts I could find online.
> 
> Keane's Bakery is a reference to Robert Carlyle's movie, "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dance and Charm School."
> 
> Emsworth's Homebrewed is from P. G. Wodehouse's "Uncle Fred in the Springtime." He described it as a liquid Pollyanna, forever pointing out bright sides and silver linings. "It slips its little hand in yours and whispers, 'Cheer up!'"

Three nights before Will Scarlet tucked a quilt around Belle in the backroom of her husband’s shop, Rumplestiltskin had found his way to the subbasement of the New York Public Library to talk with a dragon.

He had wanted to linger in the library proper. The building, so he understood, dated back to the 19th century, to the height of the lords of industry, emperors in all but name, who had built this place with more extravagance and ostentatious display of wealth than the palaces of Fairy Land.

Belle would have loved it.

He shoved that aside. He wasn't the authority on what Belle would love, was he? Look how wrong he'd been.

_I wanted to be chosen._

He'd chosen her from the start, no matter how mockingly. She was the great treasure, the wonder, the  _miracle_  worth all the lives of a kingdom. Like one of her well-loved tales, she was the noble-born daughter of a great knight for whose sake a valiant (or not so valiant) warrior would fight all the armies of darkness single-handed.

That the valiant warrior was small and scaled and had a tendency to giggle over the bodies of his foes was beside the point. That he laughed at the sight of Ogres running like so many fat chickens when, perhaps, he should have been busy slaughtering them was a personal foible, nothing more. They were defeated. They were gone. They weren't coming back anytime soon.

And he would do it all again and more, if she would just look at him the way she used to. . . .

Not that it mattered now. Not that it had ever mattered. The people of this world spun a pretty whimsy out of the old tale of a princess and a loathsome frog—repulsive, slime green, warts growing over its diseased flesh like a moldering fungus, and corpse-cold—but even they knew the true story. In the tale they never told the little ones still innocent enough to believe in their happy endings, the princess hated the frog and loathed it all the more for its desperate, pathetic efforts to win her love. In the end, overwhelmed with disgust, she threw it against the castle walls, smashing it to pulp.

The story had amused him when he'd first read it here. How else did they thing it could have ended?

How else indeed?

Zelena had murdered his son. Rumplestiltskin had destroyed his own mind to keep Bae from death. He had given up his freedom, letting himself be caught in Zelena's obscene web to try and hold onto him—

For nothing. Everything he'd done, everything he'd endured, it was for nothing.

But, even now, even knowing how it would end, he would he do the same. He saw himself holding his dying son on the cold ice beneath a winter moon, he tried to imagine fighting for the dagger instead of Baelfire—to save Belle, to save himself, to save all of them—and he couldn't. He was weak and a coward, but Rumplestiltskin couldn't let the last sight of his dying child be of his father choosing that cursed blade over him again, no matter the cost.

And he couldn't let Zelena live, not after everything she'd done. Couldn't the Charmings see that? She would have torn the life out of their infant son, gutting him with magic the way the Huntsman had gutted deer with his knife but with far less love and not a drop of mercy. Gods, he would have _helped_ her. At her command, he had traced the patterns of the spell in the earth, he had torn the newborn babe from his mother's arms, he had placed the child on the cold ground to die before taking his own place in the circle of sacrifice.

They would have let her live. They would have given her chance after chance until Zelena destroyed them all.

And they leashed him like a dog. They didn't even murmur an objection as Zelena's sister picked up the dagger and ordered him like a trained beast.

He could not let Zelena live and, knowing there was a way to be free of the dagger's curse, he had to take it.

 _I chose you_ , he silently told Belle.  _I always chose you._

It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Even for the most loving of princesses, the story always ended the same way. No matter what she promised, no matter how she tried to endure, there would always be a moment when she saw the truth, when the touch of the loathsome frog became too much for her to bear.

_Now, I see only the beast._

Rumplestiltskin found the room he had been looking for. Odds and ends, long forgotten by the world above, were stored here, covered in dust, lying haphazardly around an ancient, unused furnace—the library’s heating system had long ago been updated and this room sealed off and forgotten.

It had the look of a magical fortress, he thought, a dark wizard's redoubt forged from black iron.  Quite fitting.

"Maleficent," he whispered. "I summon thee."

With a blaze of fire, the furnace roared to life.

X

Will settled on Tom Clark's store for all his one stop shopping needs. It was close to the pawn shop, had a good selection, and (most importantly) was easier to walk around in after closing without the neighbors noticing than the supermarket.

They may not have had security systems in the old world, but Will had snuck past his share of magical defenses and killer guardians. Compared to that, Tom's security code (7VII) wasn't even a challenge.

Once inside, he grabbed a bag and started going through his list. A couple boxes of saltines—check. A few cans of soup (the flavorless, cheap stuff—easy on the stomach—and the more expensive kind meant to for people with working taste buds)—check. The bread Tom stocked was about 50% preservatives and 50% Styrofoam. It could sit there for years without going bad. Will ignored it. But, the donuts came fresh every day from Keane's Bakery. There were a couple of twists left, an old fashioned, and an apple fritter. Will left the apple fritter on principle. He also grabbed some peanut butter and jelly. He checked over the fruit, but the stuff looked ready for a compost heap (never trust a man who always had a cold to notice when food went bad). So, instead, he grabbed some juice and ginger ale. And nylons. He couldn't forget the nylons.

Will shifted things around on most of the shelves, trying to hide that anything was missing, until he got to the beer. Tom had a good selection. That was something you could always count on with Dwarves. But, Will needed to find just the right stuff. He had what  _looked_ like the right one, but he held it up to the faint light coming from the street lamps outside to be sure. Yep, Emsworth Homebrewed. It was a local brew. They didn't produce that much, and what they did make was almost entirely bought up by places like Granny's (rumor had it Granny paid in pies and brownies, as well as cash, to make sure she kept her most-favored-customer status) . Tom's was the only place that sold it off the shelf.

This time, Will shoved a couple boxes of the other brands to the side, to make it obvious someone had been searching. He thought about making it even clearer—maybe leave some empty bottles or break a few?—but it was better to keep things simple. With his luck, a passing bag lady would hear the glass breaking and call the cops before he made it out of the store. Besides, the Dwarf hadn't been born who wouldn't notice if his beer was missing. All Will had to do was make sure the trail led back where it should.

Will walked over to the counter. The drawer of the cash register was open and empty. The money would be locked up for the night in a safe somewhere. That was all right. Will wasn't taking any. He dropped three twenties into the open drawer. If the beer wasn't enough of a clue, this ought to help Tom figure things out.

As a final touch, Will checked the break room. As he'd hoped, Tom had some of Keane's bread back a there for himself (Will wondered if the bread out front had been sitting there for twenty-eight years. Had anyone ever been desperate enough to buy it?). He also found some of Keane's English muffins. Of course, that meant he had to go back for butter.

Will went over his list one last time then checked over the store. It looked good. All right, then. He hit the security code and exited. Once he was outside, there was just one more thing to do. He got out Snottingham's wallet again. Yeah, there was Snotty's ID. There was also another hundred dollars left, plus a few smaller bills and some change.

Will pocketed the five twenties and left the rest, so it wasn't too obvious Snotty had been cleaned out. Then he dropped the wallet just outside the pharmacy's back door where Tom would find it in the morning. Knowing Tom, he might even call the sheriff to report the lost wallet before he stepped inside and put together the rest of the story Will had given him.

Snottingham was still sitting in the back alley when Will got back to him. As expected, Snotty and his stomach's contents had parted ways. Will got out the Emsworth Homebrewed. He poured some of it down the sewer (a crying shame, but it had to be done) and some of it down Snotty's shirt (it smelled a lot better than the stuff Snottingham had spewed onto it). Then he wrapped Snotty's hands around the empty bottles, one by one, making sure there were plenty of fingerprints, before leaving them littered around him, dropping the last one in his lap.

If Tom called the sheriff tomorrow—and he would—she would come checking for Snotty. If she decided to check the alley (and Will thought he could make sure of that), she'd find a hung-over drunk lying in a pool of Tom's beer. Even Snottingham wasn't stupid enough to explain he'd been attacking a woman instead of robbing a store.

Besides, odds were, he wasn't getting charged with anything. Sure, it looked like Snotty had waltzed in after hours. But, he'd paid, hadn't he? And he was one of Sheriff Swan's boyfriend's pals, wasn't he?

Which was just as well. Mrs. Gold wouldn't feel some crazy, heroic urge to go in and clear him if he got off with a slap on the wrist and a warning.

 _Heroes,_ he thought with disgust. They'd tell you to ignore it if someone stabbed you through the heart. Then they'd tell you you were a beast and hang you out to dry if you tried to stop someone from stabbing _them_. The only smart thing to do was steer clear of the mad lot of them.

That's what Will meant to do when he went back into the pawn shop. He put away the food and put the nylons on the table at the head of the little bed where he'd left Mrs. Gold. That was it. He was going to leave. If Mrs. Gold ever figured out Tom's wasn't the only place he'd pocketed an item or two, he wasn't going to be around to hear about it.

Then he made the mistake of looking at her. She was so small—small and thin. Even in her sleep, he could see the dark shadows under her eyes. Her face was gaunt, the bones pressing against the skin. He'd bet good money, if anyone wrote books tiny enough to fit (and if Mrs. Gold didn't kill anyone who checked), her ribs were sticking out enough to use as shelves. Bloody hell, she was supposed to have friends, wasn't she? There was the man-eating werewolf and her heavily armed grandmother, not to mention all the little kiddies coming in for story time and, oh, yeah, the completely insane royal family and their tart-eating daughter. She even had a drunken Dwarf in her corner. Didn't any of these people notice something was off?

It wasn't his business, not anymore. Look what happened when he tried to play the hero. People wound up dead. Little kids who didn't understand magic made wishes for things they couldn't have and paid for it with their lives.

Getting Mrs. Gold breakfast, framing Snotty, that was more than anyone had any right to expect from him. It was time to get going.

OK, he could make sure the shades were in place and the curtains were drawn. And he might as well make sure the alarm was off on that stupid clock—if anyone needed to talk to Mrs. Gold, they could do their part and come looking for her instead of expecting her to get up and come searching for them. She looked like she'd run herself ragged long enough.

And . . . Will had been trying not to think about magic. He thought about the things he needed and how he would get back to his old life, but that as far as he went. It made things easier. He was just Will Scarlet, a thief and a Knave. He wasn't—he didn't—he tried not to think about being something else, about being bound by magic and forced to do whatever his master demanded, even when it was a wish he would have died rather than grant.

He thought of brown eyes, empty and lifeless, staring at nothing.

He thought of blue eyes, confused and full of pain as the woman he loved was struck from behind, reaching out to him as the life drained away from her.

He should leave.

He didn't. There were charms in the room. He knew enough to recognize the ones made to protect the store and the people inside it.

It was safer, he told himself as he put them in place. What protected Mrs. Gold would protect him. That was the only reason he was doing it.

He settled down on the floor. He'd slept on worse—he'd been locked up in worse, sometimes by people who just had to share their ideas about how the execution in the morning should go. What, did they think that was original?  Anyway, it was better than sharing the alley with Snotty.

Will closed his eyes and tried to forget about the rest of the world. It was quiet and dark. The only thing he heard was the soft, almost silent sound of each of Mrs. Gold's steady breaths.

X

Three nights before, flames in a black furnace shaped themselves into eyes, the bright orange of iron ready to be shaped, blinking against the white heat.

"Rumplestiltskin," the flames rumbled. "What do you want?"

"The same thing you do, dearie," he said. "A way home."


	5. A Bad Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle tries to understand what it means to be enslaved by the dagger.

It was late when Belle dragged herself out of bed. Late by her standards. Outside, she could hear Storybrooke just beginning to stir. But, there was so much to do. There was always so much to do. She tried to remember if she'd set the alarm last night. She thought she had. Maybe she'd tried to set it and turned it off instead? It was hard to remember anything except how afraid she'd been and how tired.

It wasn't as if she needed to remember the details from day to day. There were things she knew would happen. Sleeping in didn't change them. Every morning, Belle woke with her stomach churning, her mind already putting together to-do lists and struggling to make a plan to get everything taken care of. There were potions to be brewed and research to be done. There were more magical items to be inventoried and tested as she searched for answers. If the alarm had gone off when it was supposed to, there were a couple more grimoires she could have looked through. That's what she needed to be doing, researching the hat or any kind of related magic, trying to find a solution.

And the library. It was past time for her to be at the library, pulling the books people wanted on hold, putting away the ones they'd returned, organizing displays. Storybrooke's schools regularly sent her lists of all the things the students would be needing so she could get them out ahead of time and have them ready.

She tried to tell herself she needed to hurry, she needed to get moving and make up for lost time. But, for once, she didn't want to be in the library. Its hours were short enough to begin with. Belle was the only librarian. She'd had some volunteers who helped with shelving and some of the other work, but they'd melted away these past weeks. There'd been talk of getting other workers, but all that had been tabled once Rumplestiltskin was exiled.

 _Come on, you can do this,_ Belle told herself. But, she kept remembering when she was first working on opening the library and Hook had shown up, attacking her. Back then, she'd been able to call Rumple, and he'd come for her. Now, she imagined being in the library, looking up, and seeing Keith's drunken, angry face looking down.

Maybe the sheriff would come if Belle managed to call her. Maybe she wouldn't, distracted by something more important.

Maybe Belle should get Rumple's gun.

How would last night have gone if she'd had it? Better? Worse? Belle tried to imagine being responsible for ending another life and what would happen after.

_(She didn't have to imagine. She only had to close her eyes and remember Rumple at the town line. She already knew)_

Belle tried to imagine explaining to Sheriff Swan why Keith was dead and imagined Emma, shaking her head in bafflement, not understanding a word she said. Emma would probably call it a lovers' quarrel right before she tossed Belle in a cell and threw away the key, the same way she'd called what Belle did to Rumple heroic.

Belle wanted to throw up.

Instead, she dragged herself out of bed. That was when she saw the pack of nylons left by the lamp. There was a note stuck to it.

_Mrs. Gold,_

_I picked up some stuff for you. You looked like you could use it. The food's in the cupboards._

_Will Scarlet_

_P.S. I saw the sheriff drag Keith away on a drunk and disorderly charge early this morning. Seems like he broke into some place besides yours last night. That ought to keep him out of your hair for a day or two._

Belle turned the letter over in her hands. Then she picked up the nylons. They were nothing fancy, not like the colored or patterned tights Belle often wore, but they were a kindness when it felt like so long since anyone had given her one—a kindness she actually needed, not just the barbed thanks everyone seemed to think she should have—or the vicious kindnesses they thought she  _should_ need, like pushing Keith at her and telling her to forget all about the man she'd married and given her heart to.

Belle pulled out her phone. The library was going to stay closed today. She would try to do the things that _had_  to be done but she was not pushing herself beyond that. Just for today, she would eat a meal and rest, and then and only then would she see if she could find a way to keep the world from falling apart.

X

Belle had decided on Granny's, despite the food Will Scarlet had left her. Hot food and maybe a chance to talk to Ruby like a normal person. But, the surge of energy she'd felt when she'd made the decision in the shop was already beginning to fade by the time she reached the diner. Ruby had worked a double-shift last night and had been given the morning off. By the time one of the waiters (not Granny, she was busy in back) had put a plate of pancakes and a glass of milk down in front of her, Belle was ready to go back and curl up in bed. Just cutting her food and taking a bite seemed like more work than she could handle. But, she knew she needed to eat and she thought she might feel better once she'd forced it down. So, she tried not to think about Keith or Will or any of the other problems she was putting off while she forced herself to chew and swallow.

She'd go back home after this, she promised herself. She'd curl up in bed and rest just for a little while. The hat, the fairies, everything, it could all wait for just a little longer.

That's what she was telling herself when she heard an angry, accusatory voice shouting at her. "There you are!" Hook said. Belle looked up and saw him bearing down on her.

"Not now, Captain," she said, looking back at her meal.

"Yes, now, 'Mrs. Gold,'" Hook said her married name with a sneer. He did that now when he was getting ready to make demands of her, reminding her that she was married to the man who had almost killed him, who'd almost destroyed Emma, and may have destroyed Blue and all the other fairies. "While the rest of us are working on solving the town's problems, you're here wasting the day away. Why aren't you at the shop?"

The shop. Not  _her_ shop. He made it sound like she was hired help and he was the owner. Belle thought about pointing that out to him but she was too tired for whatever petulant argument Hook came up with. "I'm eating breakfast, Captain."

"This late in the morning? What have you been doing with yourself all day? Never mind. Leave that. I need you at the shop."

Then, appearing as if from nowhere, Will Scarlet walked into the diner behind Hook. "Let me guess," Will said. "You're trying to scare the lady away so you can make off with her pancakes once she's gone. That's low even for you. If you're that desperate to hustle up a meal, why don't you try begging on a street corner? Get yourself a tin cup and go to it. Or head down to The Rabbit Hole and offer to tell anyone the story of how you lost your hand if they buy you a drink. Oh, wait. You've run out of people who haven't heard it, haven't you?"

Hook glared at him. "This has nothing to do with you."

"That's funny, cause it's got nothing to do with you either. Or did I miss the news and you're our new breakfast cop? Did the sheriff send you out to round up a gang of Pop Tarts for her? Dangerous work. Watch out for the strawberries. Those blokes are nasty."

Hook drew himself up importantly. "Gold, here, is going to help me—"

"Oh, is she? Why? Because you asked so nicely?"

"She  _owes_ me. After what her husband did to me—"

"Get off it. It's the same thing you sat back and watched Cora do to hundreds of people. It's the same thing you did to that princess, Aurora. So don't get all high and mighty on the rest of us."

" _Don't get all high and mighty?_ " Hook sounded outraged. Or Belle thought he was trying to sound outraged. Instead, the fight seemed far away and unimportant. It was as if she were watching an actor practicing his lines, pushing for a few more points of melodrama. She just wanted to finish eating and leave. She didn't see how to do either with Hook standing between her and the door, posturing.

The captain went on the offensive. "Do you know what it's like having your heart ripped out of you, being forced to help your worst enemy—"

Will rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, been there, bought the t-shirt. Did a better job than you fighting back. But, maybe that's cause I don't  _like_  hurting people. Anyhow, the Dark One didn't turn you into an arse. You did that all on your own."

"Why you—" The pirate spluttered. Unable to find a counterargument, he raised his hook, ready to go after Will.

 _Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,_ Belle remembered the quote (though not where she'd read it). Of course, if that were true, she had to wonder what it said about Storybrooke.

Will, for his part, looked ready to rip the oversized fishhook off the captain's arm and shove it up his nose—or maybe someplace more painful—when Granny pushed Hook away. Being Granny, she put her heart into it. Hook went sprawling onto the floor. Granny stood over him. She didn't have her trademark crossbow—but she _did_  have a really big meat cleaver in her hand.

"That's enough, Killian," she said. "If you can't leave my customers in peace, you can get out of here."

Granny was a made-wolf—an important difference in werewolf circles—not a born one. She didn't change any more when the moon was full and bright. But, everyone was pretty sure she still had her wolf strength—or maybe she'd always been like this, tough as oak roots. Hook looked like he was thinking about testing whether the old woman was stronger than him, but common sense won out. Belle felt a moment of surprise. It was more than she'd expected of him. But, no, she thought. It wasn't common sense. Hook liked to play the crowd, and the crowd in Granny's was against him.

It didn't mean he wouldn't try again later.

Granny glanced at Will Scarlet. "Friend of yours?" she asked Belle, fingering the cleaver meaningfully.

"He can stay," Belle said neutrally. "I'd like to talk to him."

Granny nodded curtly. "Good enough. I'll get him some pancakes." She fixed her eyes on Will. "Give her any trouble, and I'll show you how we grind up hamburger for meatloaf."

Will sat down. "Told you I don't trust the meat pies," he said as Granny marched back into the kitchen.

"I—I think she's watching out for me," Belle said uncertainly. It wasn't the first time since Rumple was gone that someone had tried to help her, but it was the first time she could remember feeling like what they did helped—or the first time since Will had given her food and a new pair of stockings. She looked at him uncertainly. "Did you mean what you said?" she asked. "Did you really have your heart torn out?"

X

Evidence that a Knave is losing it: He picks two fights in less than 24 hours on behalf of the same woman who doesn't even know his real name. OK, nobody here did. That wasn't the point.

For a moment, Will had had thought Granny would toss him out with Hook. He could already tell his day would have been a whole lot easier if she had. Instead, he'd seen the worried look she'd given Mrs. Gold right before agreeing to let him plant himself in a booth and stick around. The Dark One might not have been welcome here if he'd shown up, but his wife clearly was.

In fact, there was no reason not to get lost. Will could shove off, and Granny would see to it Mrs. Gold was fine. She could even eat the pancakes Granny was getting for him, a little something for everyone.

Except . . . he'd heard the way Hook spoke to Mrs. Gold, ordering her around—as if he had the  _right_ to order her around, as if she were a good-for-nothing-slave and he were a much-wronged master. Granny might not have heard all that—she'd been in back, and even wolf ears couldn't have heard them over a noisy kitchen and a diner full of chatting customers. But, there were people all around who must have heard him and none of them looked like they were arguing. Maybe they just didn't want to stand up to the pirate—or stand up to the sheriff's boyfriend (the sheriff could say whatever she bloody pleased about playing fair, Will didn't buy it).

Or maybe none of them wanted to stand up for Mrs. Gold.

Meanwhile, Mrs. G was asking him a question. "Did you really have your heart torn out?"

All right, he hadn't been expecting that one. He looked at her worried, tired eyes, trying not to feel guilty. He'd got Keith sent to jail and he'd turned off her alarm. It wasn't his fault if she hadn't gotten any sleep—it  _wasn't._ He tried to concentrate on her question: had he had his heart torn out?

 _Yeah,_ he almost told her, before his brain got ahold of his tongue, _And in so many different ways._

Instead, he shifted uncomfortably, swallowing the bad joke. "Uh, I guess you could say that."

She looked up at him with something . . . it looked almost like  _defeat_ in her eyes. "Was it Rumplestiltskin?" she asked.

He wondered how many people had told her about deals the Dark One had made since the guy was exiled? He wondered how much they left out? Maleficent was no angel, but Will could think of some important things he could leave out of the story about a certain mirror he might-have-sort-of-maybe-kind-of helped get out of her castle that would make her look worse (like that it had been stolen, and whose idea it had been to steal it, and—the big one—that, instead of blasting Robin Hood's camp to a small cinder, Maleficent had just told them to keep the gold but warned them that the mirror was nothing but trouble).

"What, the Dark One?" Will scoffed. "Not even close. You said you know about Cora, didn't you?"

Mrs. Gold shuddered and nodded. Yeah, that was most people's reaction to Cora once they got to know her. Or once they found the bodies. Or the stuff she'd torn out of the bodies. Why couldn't her majesty collect stamps or comic books or something else that couldn't be carried in squishy packages that leaked red?

Will decided not to mention the packages. People were eating. "She was in Wonderland—I told you about Ana and me going there, right? I met up with her after Ana decided to—" his voice caught a little, "—to marry someone else.

"It  _hurt,_ " he whispered. Part of him wanted to take it back as soon as he'd spoken. There was more truth in those two words than in everything else he'd said to her since clobbering Snotty. Not that he'd lied. But, as someone who was way too full of himself had once said, there's difference between not lying and honesty of the heart.

But, it seemed like, once honesty found its way in, it was going to rip everything out of him it could. He couldn't shut up. "Every day, I woke up thinking  _this_  is the day, this is the day she'll come back to me. I knew it was stupid. What did she have with me? Nothing but being on her own and friendless with a loser who ruined her dreams and took everything from her. And what did she get in return for everything she gave up? Life with me. Nobody—not the Dark One or Hook or Snotty—ever talked some girl into a worse deal." He'd known how bad it was. The woman he loved would have to be an outright idiot to come back to him. And, if there was one thing she'd never, ever been, it was stupid.

Knowing that didn't help.

"But, I kept hoping. I thought she'll leave all that and come looking for me. Because, what we had, it was better than gold or magic or power or anything else anyone could give her. Or it had been. Or I thought it had been. But . . . she didn't. She never came.”

Enough, he thought. Enough with the honest truths.  Time to go back to the other kind.  "So, by the time I met Cora, having a heart didn't seem like such a great idea."

Mrs. Gold looked horrified. That meant she understood what he was saying, even if she didn't want to. "You're saying—you don't mean—you  _asked_ Cora to take your heart?"

Oh, yeah, smart lady. But, it wasn't a simple yes-no-maybe. Oh, Cora had played him. But, he'd known she was doing it and he still made that deal with her. In the end, who had really asked who?

And where was the honest answer in that mess?

He went with not-lying instead, something that sounded like an admission but wasn't. "Well, it's not like I knew what she was going to do with it, did I?"

Did you ever know when you gave someone your heart? In the end, the one he'd really given it to was the woman he loved, and look where that got him. Not that he hadn't had it coming.

He went on with the story, skipping the messy bits about feelings and what he had—and hadn't—been thinking. "The queen wanted a Knave, a Jack-of-All-Trades," he said. "Someone who could fight alongside soldiers, hunt down her enemies, spy on her friends, and pick a few pockets in places her people normally couldn't go." Put that way, it sounded almost innocent, didn't it? Nothing ugly or terrible, nothing to give anyone nightmares where they woke up screaming.

"But . . . you said you fought her?" There was a desperate hope in her voice. Who for? Hook, to believe he'd had a chance to fight Rumplestiltskin? Or someone else in the long list of Cora or Regina or her husband's victims? Or was she just feeling sorry for him?

Yeah. Right.

Whoever it was, there wasn't much he could give her. "A little. But, there's not a lot you can do about it. When Cora wanted someone dead, she usually had a good story for the soldiers she sent out—said someone was a murderer or a child-killer or something like that—but finding out she was lying didn't change much. You can fight the vague orders or the general ones, but. . . . Look, if Cora held my heart and she told me you were holding up Granny's and to go knock you down and put you in handcuffs, I'd do it and I'd  _believe_ you were holding up Granny's even if I saw you here eating pancakes. I'd believe it even if I found you asleep over a book at the library. That's how it works.

"Although, if you're asking if that's how Hook got his lovely disposition, like I said, getting your heart stolen doesn't make you an arse. He's got no one to blame that on but himself."

"I don't care about Hook," Mrs. Gold ground out. She bit her lip for a moment, obviously deciding whether or not she should say what came next. "Do you—you said you knew a little about magic. Do you . . . do you know anything about how the Dark One's curse works?"

Will felt alarm bells going off in his head. "Uh, if you're talking about breaking it, that's way beyond anything I was ever up to."  _And, if you're talking about passing it onto someone else to use his power—_

"No, not that," Belle said. She looked down, studying what was left of her meal. At least, she'd managed to eat a fair share of it. She might even finish if no more idiots like Hook came along and interrupted. "Do you—do you know anything about—about what it's like? Being controlled by the dagger?"

"Oh. Got it." No, he didn't get it. He didn't know why she was asking this and he didn't want to. But, that didn't seem like enough to keep him from answering. First his feet last night, now his big mouth. Was there any other part of him lining up to sell him out?

No, don't answer that.

"Did you ever know Sydney Glass?" Will asked. "He used to write for The Daily Mirror."

"The town paper? No, I haven't met him, not in this world. If I met him in the old one, he had a different name. Do you know who he was there?"

"Once upon a time, he was a genie."

"A genie? You mean granting people wishes and so on?"

"Yeah, that. He got freed by Snow White's father. Long story. Never mind. It didn't turn out too well. Thing is, back when I was in Wonderland, there was this other genie, Cyrus, and. . . . No, that's a long story, too. OK, there was this girl, Alice, who had three wishes. She traded one to a certain Knave of Hearts—" Will gave a small bow, "—in return for helping her rescue her true love. That would be Cyrus, the genie. Alice used the two wishes she kept to save some other people—she had a thing about that—and I, uh, the wish that was left, it got used, and, uh. . . . Look, you want to be careful when you're making wishes. Those things backfire like you wouldn't believe. Cyrus got freed. He wasn't a genie anymore. Only it wasn't exactly that he'd been  _freed._  It was more like the wish decided he'd  _traded places_ with the ars—uh, with the bloke stupid enough to make it."

" _You_  were a genie?"

Will shrugged. "I didn't make a career out of it, if that's what you mean. Jack-of-all-trades, remember? See, Cyrus and his brothers had been cursed to become genies when—never mind, even longer story. Just know that, once Cyrus got free, he was able to fix things with the one who'd cursed them and, poof! Three less genies, three more normal blokes, simple as that.

"But, before that happened . . . well, let's just call it a learning experience. Genies are the slave of whoever gets ahold of their bottles and pops 'em open. It's only for the three wishes, and then it's back in the jug till next time. But, it's still a lot worse than someone holding your heart. This wizard, Jafar, and a monster called the Jabberwocky—she could see into your mind and find whatever you were most afraid of—they captured Ana. She'd gotten ahold of the bottle. They couldn't take it from her—not and have it do any good—till she'd used up the wishes. So, they tortured her till she did." Another long story and an ugly one. Jafar had put her in a cage while the Jabberwocky tore Ana's mind apart—the Jabberwocky didn't just  _see_ fear, she  _fed_ on it—and you got to relive all of it while she was munching on you. Belle—Mrs. Gold didn't need to hear that. He kept it simple. "After what the Jabberwocky did to her, she couldn't even think of wishes to protect herself. She just did whatever they told her.

"And, seeing it, being there, it didn't make whit of difference. I couldn't. . . . It's not like you don't know where this is going. They were only keeping her alive till she'd used her wishes. You could see it in their eyes. It was so obvious, Snottingham could be too drunk to remember his own name and _he'd_ have figured it out. They were going to kill her as soon as they were done. Knowing that  _didn't change things_. I  _had_  to do what my master said." Nobody ever asked him about this, not ever. And, before walking in here, he would have said he wouldn't tell them if they had. But, now he'd started, he wanted Mrs. Gold to understand—he  _needed_ her to understand. Another story came pouring out. It was another not-lie, the truth but not the truth—because there was no other way he could tell Mrs. Gold and, suddenly, he needed to. It burned him as fiercely as anything he'd ever felt—for friends, for family, for his wife—in his life.

"Before all this," he said. "When the genie thing first happened, there was this kid, Lizard, she was called." He thought about a child with trusting brown eyes. He thought about those eyes changing, growing empty as the life inside them faded away. How could such simple wishes—things any child had a right to at least  _ask_  for, whether or not they got it—go so terribly wrong? "She got ahold of the bottle. It didn't matter if we'd been mates for years or if I'd always looked out for her even when Cora was around, giving orders. It didn't matter that—that she was  _just a kid._  She made a bad wish, and it killed her. I couldn't stop it. If Jafar had had control of me and he wished for me to put a dagger through Anastasia, through my wife, I'd have done it. I couldn't have stopped myself.

"That's what it's like being a genie. From what I know about magic, it's even worse being the Dark One. If you're a genie, your master only commands your magic. If you're the Dark One, your master commands  _you_. You can't argue, you can't fight it." He tried to think of another example, to help her understand. "You ever read the Harry Potter books? You know how Dobby the House Elf has to beat himself up whenever his masters want him to? Same thing. If your master tells you to iron your fingers, till they're all nice and crispy, and sing while you do it, that's what you do." Will stopped. What was wrong with him? If it was a choice between truth of the heart and not lying, Mrs. Gold looked like she could enjoy option number three, the sound of silence. "Er, but you've got to know this, right? Weren't you married to the Dark One?" He meant the question innocently (well, innocently for him). He wasn't prepared for how Mrs. Gold changed. And he'd thought she'd looked dead before.

X

Belle flinched as Will tossed that word at her.  _Weren't you_ married  _to the Dark One._ And the rest of it.  _You've got to know this, right?_

She had. She hadn't. She—

She'd been married to Rumplestiltskin, and she hadn't let herself know.

Past tense.

 _It's over,_ she thought.  _Everyone in Storybrooke knows it's over. Even the man who told me he didn't know better than to ask Cora to rip his heart out can see it._

 _But, it's not. Even if no one else believes it. Even if_ Rumple  _doesn't believe it, I'm still his wife. Forever. I promised him forever._

She tried to believe it. But, people who promised forever—people who  _kept_  their promise of forever—didn't throw their husbands to the wolves, then turn their backs on them, and walk away.

All the same, Belle tried to argue with the truth. "I—I'm still married to him." The words were barely more than a whisper. She didn't know if Will even heard her. "I didn't. . . ." Belle closed her eyes, remembering the look on Rumplestiltskin's face as he'd struggled to save his son from Zelena, letting the dagger slip from his grasp. She remembered the anguish in his voice when he told her to run, that Zelena knew they were trying to get him away from her. She knew. The power of the dagger, how it enslaved Rumple, she _knew_. There was no reason to have asked Will. And, if none of the rest had happened, she'd seen what happened when she sent Rumple away.

_I'm afraid._

She put down her fork, her appetite gone, stomach churning once again. "I shouldn't have. . . ."  _I shouldn't have sent him away like that, without even giving him a chance to explain. I shouldn't have sent him away with nothing but the clothes on his back, thinking I hated him. I want to find him, to set everything right._

As if she could. As if this was something anyone could fix.

But, she couldn't leave till she'd finished, till she'd taken care of the things that only she could take care of.

_And what if I can't? What if I waste the rest of my life here, trying to fix what can never be set right?_

Already, there was another crisis, and Belle had ignored it. Because Hook was unbearable. Because she wanted to finish one meal in peace.

"I have to go," Belle said. "I have to at least see what Hook was talking about. It may be something serious."

Wearily, trying to ignore how hard it was just to stand, Belle got up and headed back to work.

X

Two nights before, Gold had managed the long trip back to Maine and back to the town that was and wasn't there. He stood at the border, holding a small, cast iron figurine of a black dragon. He thought Henry might appreciate it. If money hadn't been so very tight, Gold would have liked to have gotten another one for the boy as a gift. This one had another purpose.

Rumplestiltskin looked down at Maleficent and smiled. "Well, dearie?" he asked. "Shall we go in? I do believe the party has started without us."

 


	6. The Fear Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle tells Will why she needs to free the fairies.

Mrs. Gold was the only one at the pawn shop by the time Will got there. He hadn't really noticed it at the diner, but he could see how she'd piled on the make-up, hiding the bruise Keith had left her with. He was supposed to be good at spotting things like that—sheriffs setting traps, wizards hiding in the mists, women hiding how hurt and broken they really were—but that one had slipped right by him.

Mrs. Gold was busy emptying out a large box of what looked like jars of dried or pickled herbs. She examined each jar, made marks in a ledger, and put them away. She didn't notice him till he put a Styrofoam container and a large iced tea down on the counter in front of her. "Potion stuff?" Will asked, looking at the bottles.

"Mostly," Mrs. Gold said, studying his offerings as if they might have poisoned snakes hiding inside. "What's this?"

"Granny sent it over. She said you're getting too thin and need to eat more pancakes."

Mrs. Gold looked at her box of herbs. "I don't have time. . . ."

"Then you can call Granny and tell her it's not my fault you aren't eating. I'm not sure she was joking about the hamburger." He gestured towards the jars. "This was Hook's emergency? Bottle inventory?"

"Magic herbs," Mrs. Gold said. "There's an old woman, a professor. She has several degrees in botany. Or her Storybrooke self does. Back home, she was an herbalist." Mrs. Gold smiled at the irony. "That's why being a botanist was a curse for her. She didn't just enjoy knowing about the herbs, she enjoyed preparing them and using them to help people. Here, she spent twenty-eight years collecting samples, cultivating gardens and green houses, and letting them collect dust."

And she'd told Mrs. Gold all this on their first meeting. He got that. Mrs. Gold did that to people, getting them to pour out their life stories by the warm way she looked at them. Or get them to make up really good life stories to pour out instead. That would be the safe way to go. "And, now, the botanist is using them? Or just foisting them off on you?"

"This is helping me," she said quickly. "Some of them were magical plants, ones I didn't even know made it to this world with us. And not just from her garden. I think she has notes on every blade of grass in town."

“That sounds better,” Will allowed. “ You think maybe she’s really was trying to help? A not just _dump more work on you?”_

Belle smiled wearily.  Will couldn’t tell if she saw his point or just didn’t want to argue with him. "It’s fine,” she said.  “All the plants she brought have been properly labelled and presernved. And look at all her notes. I need to start reading them—" Mrs. Gold pointed to a stack of untidy looking notebooks, with post-its and bits of paper sticking out of them. Uh-oh. Will should have seen this coming.  He had some idea what would happen to the food if he let Mrs. Gold bury herself in those. It was time for an intervention.

"They'll still be there after you eat," Will said. When Mrs. Gold gave him an exasperated look, he added, "Hey, this is self-preservation. You saw Granny's meat cleaver. You really want her coming after me?" He tried to do sad, puppy-dog eyes. That one didn't work too well with people who'd known him a long time—maybe a week or two—but he hoped it would be enough for Mrs. Gold.

It wasn't. But, it helped. It took a bit more persuasion, but, in the end, Will got her to open the container. Mrs. Gold grimaced slightly as the smell of warm food drifted up, but she pulled a stool over to the counter and sat down. Then, with a determined look on her face, she took the plastic knife and fork Granny had included and began taking slow, methodical bites, chewing thoroughly before each swallow. It was like watching a kid trying to avoid death-by-vegetables. Will decided not to comment.

Instead, he picked up one of the jars. There was a label on it in delicate cursive, _Dragonwort._ Near the bottom, on the left-hand side, it said, _From the kitchen of Artemisia Longneaux._

"Artemisia Long-knocks? I wonder what she did to Regina to get a name like that."

"Who knows? And it's _Longneaux_." Mrs. Gold said the _Long_ with the o way back in her throat, the way Bostonians down south said _law_ (Will may have never left Storybrooke, but Will's cursed self said he'd spent a lot of time up and down the eastern seaboard before coming to a small town to lay low). The _neaux_ sounded like _new,_ if Inspector Clouseau were saying it or maybe someone from a Monty Python movie. _We are the knights who say neaux._ That had worked getting rid of King Arthur, come to think of it. Maybe he should try it next time the sheriff came after him. "The professor was very particular about it," Mrs. Gold said. "She corrected Hook every time he got it wrong."

"Really? I think I like her." Will waved an arm towards the box and bottles. "But, that doesn't mean this was worth skipping a meal. You're just sorting seasonings."

Mrs. Gold shrugged. "It needed to be done."

"It didn't need to be done _now._ Look, Mrs. Gold, I know how guys like Hook think. Your husband almost did him in, and you saved his life. He's not going to forgive either of those."

Mrs. Gold was a smart woman, but she was also tired and worn out. She didn't follow. "He's not going to forgive having his life saved?"

"Not by someone like you. If it had been someone else—Mr. Mary Margaret, maybe, whatever his name is—if the mayor's husband showed up at the last minute and saved Hook by beating Gold in a sword fight, that would be OK. Mr. Mary Mayor's a big, manly guy, and it doesn't make Hook look like a wimp if he beats the Dark One in a fight when Hook couldn't.

"Or maybe if the queen had showed up and had an epic, magic battle with Gold, lots of fireballs all over the place. Nobody expects Hook to be throw fireballs around. Tiny the Giant cam get whipped by magic, and nobody thinks it makes him look weak, right?

"But, you're not a warrior and you're not a witch. You're not big or powerful, not the way Hook reckons it. No offense, but you're also a woman. For a guy like him, that makes it worse."

"Emma's a woman," Belle said. "He respects her."

Will rolled his eyes. "OK, pretending 'respect' is what Hook feels for the sheriff, she's also a warrior. She doesn't call herself that, but she is. And she's proven it. She takes on dragons and ogres and things that'd make Hook wet his pants. And she's the bloody _sheriff_. Around here, that's like captain of the guard. She's as a good as an officer in the king's navy— _and_ she's royalty. The way I hear it, Hook used to be a snot-nosed officer from a hoity-toity family what got to hob-nob with the king himself." Will knew the type. Anastasia's family had been social-climbing merchants—a lot of money but none of the bloodlines. Ana's mum, _Lady_ Tremaine (and don't you ever forget the 'lady' part if you wanted to keep your skin) got her title by marrying her second husband. She'd never forgiven Ella for being the genuine article—or, as Anastasia put it, the competition—or she hadn't forgiven her till Ella married a prince and raised the whole family's connections. That was when Ella became the favorite child, the apple of stepmummy's eye. But, that didn't mean old families (like Hook's) didn't still treat Anastasia like a flea-ridden gutter-dog that snuck in while the guards were looking the other way. "And Emma's good looking and willing to go out with him. Cora had less going for her than that, and Hook put up with her for twenty-eight years." Licking her majesty's boots every step of the way, Will would wager.

He went on, "That's not you. You're a scholar. You beat the most powerful wizard alive because you were smart. And you saved Hook's neck because you don't let folks get killed if you can stop it. You didn't care if he fluttered his beady, little eyes at you. He could look like a toad leaking poison," _and he does,_ "And you'd still save him."

Mrs. Gold picked at the pancakes. "Hook doesn't flutter his eyes."

"Sure he does. Guys do it all the time. We're just not supposed to call it that. He also likes to stand around and pose so women can see how good he thinks he looks in a leather jacket."

"Excuse me, but aren't you wearing a leather jacket?"

"Yeah, but the difference is I really _do_ look good in it. I don't need anyone telling me."

_Nobody except one person._

No, he'd told himself he wasn't going to think about that. His wife . . . wasn't here. And the woman in front of him was no one’s wife, not anymore, and she had problems of her own. Even if he'd wanted to flirt with her—and she was up there with Meat-Cleaver Granny and this Professor Longneaux (was that really poison ivy in one of those jars?) for women he didn't want to flirt with—that was the last thing Mrs. Gold needed.

He wanted to flirt with a woman whose eyes lit up when she saw him, even when she was angry with him and wanted to throw him into next week (or another world). OK, maybe they hadn't lit up _then_. Maybe they never would again, no matter what he did to try and set things right, not after what he'd pulled. But, it was what he wanted.

Bloody hell, maybe he should just break into the library again and spend the night curled around another book. That had worked so well before.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gold actually laughed. It was a weak laugh. But, that was progress, right? Only, it vanished too quickly, as if it had never been there. "Hook's not the reason," she said, half-heartedly stabbing a pancake with her fork but not taking a bite of it. She hadn't eaten much. She hadn't even opened up the little packages of syrup on the side with all their calories (you could get _real_ syrup at Granny's. But, no one—even in Storybrooke—put real maple syrup in little packages for take-out. He should have gotten some at the store last night. Maybe she'd eat that). "I need to _finish._ " Her voice was a low whisper and raw with pain. "I can't leave till—till things are set right. Till the fairies are out of the hat. Till someone else can deal with the potions and magic. Till. . . ." She shook her head, unable to finish that list. "I just need it _done_."

"Leave?" Will said, baffled. "Leave where? Back to the Enchanted Forest?"

"Leave Storybrooke," Belle said. "I need to leave Storybrooke."

Will knew what the Jabberwocky's victims looked like when she was finding their greatest fear and tearing their minds apart from the inside. He knew what a woman suffering that looked like when she was desperately trying to hold on and not betray the person she loved.

No, Mrs. Gold didn't look like that. She couldn't. She had no reason to. _None._ There shouldn't be that naked agony in her eyes.

Mrs. Gold hunched over, arms hugged close against her chest, as if she were in pain. "I threw him out," she whispered. "He had _nothing_ , and I threw him out. He—he couldn't even _walk_. I didn't even listen to him. He tried to tell me . . . I don't know. I don't know what he was trying to do, or why, and I didn't even listen." She glanced at one of the cupboards (Will, remembering his own foray into one of those cupboards, immediately looked innocent). "I check his dagger every day. His—his name would vanish if he were dead. It would start to fade if—if—I have to go to him, I have to help him. I _have_ to. But, I can't. Not while things are like this."

"Uh. . . ." Will tried to think of something to say. _Don't._ That was the first thought. _You think you can do something the Dark One can't? Even if it is out there?_ That was the second. _How can you even find him?_ He couldn't say any of that.

"Regina?" he tried. "The evil queen? Doesn't she know about magic?"

"Not like this. Regina's always relied on power. The theory behind magic, why it works the way it does, why it costs the price it does, those are the things she never bothered with." Mrs. Gold gave a weak, broken smile. "She said herself, she's more likely to try and blast the hat apart as soon as she gets frustrated. She said that would be about five minutes after she started. Maybe ten. I _have_ to keep working on this."

She checked the dagger. Every day. She was working herself to death so she could find her husband. Will looked at his memories of big cities, the real ones and the others, and wondered how long a woman who would let a creep like Keith go without even pressing charges would last someplace like New York.

"You won't be able to come back," he said. Didn't she have friends here? Family? People she couldn't leave behind? OK, she was wearing away to nothing right in front of their eyes without anyone doing anything about it, but didn't she have _someone?_

Granny, he thought, looking at the pancakes. And Ruby. And maybe even the sheriff, if she stopped looking at her pretty boy's fluttering eyelids long enough to notice what was going on around her.

Mrs. Gold smiled again. It was only half a smile, really, broken and hurting, but it was stronger than the last one. "I know I can't come back," she said. "But, it's all right. I left everything behind for him before. I can do it again."

Will thought about another meeting and a parting. He thought about all the pain and the angry words. ". . . . and, if he doesn't want you?"

Her smile faltered but it didn't go away. "It's all right," she said, softly. "This isn't for me. It's for him. I—I can't fix what I've done. But, I can do this much. That's what matters."

X

The night before last, before Will ever stood outside Gold’s store, waiting to rob it, Rumplestiltskin had stood at the town border. Maleficent had been bound in sleep all the years of the curse, but her dreaming mind had wandered the world outside Storybrooke. Strange things had happened to her, there. She had told Rumplestiltskin of a wizard whose mind she had touched in Hong Kong, whose murder she had been too slow to prevent. . . .

She could not have returned once her body was slain, not without his help. But, those remains still walked in the darkness beneath Storybrooke. She existed on both sides of the line. It had no power to keep her out—or to keep out the one who held her metal form in the palm of his hand.

Rumplestiltskin smiled as he felt the magic flood back into him. The pain in his leg faded like a distant memory. But, this time, he knew better than to let go of his walking stick.


	7. Paper Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma discovers Belle is not upset about Keith's arrest.

Belle was going through Rumplestiltskin's notes on the hat once again, trying to decipher the old texts. Unfortunately, Rumplestiltskin had copied down most of what he'd found on it in whatever original language the text happened to be. There were several, small snippets of information he had found here and there. Had the sorcerer who made the hat used all these languages? Or were these bits and pieces gathered from other wizards and scholars over the ages? Or other Dark Ones?

Will, meanwhile, had volunteered to put away the bottles Professor Longneaux had brought, so long as Belle ate the food Granny had sent. Belle took a sip of her tea and pushed a bit of food around with her fork. The writing she was working on now was an odd mix.  Some of it seemed to be pictographic, some of it seemed to be phonetic, but it used the same symbols for both. Unless it didn't. Unless everything she'd translated so far was wrong and useless.

She shoved the food and the book away, frustrated. She wasn't even sure the text was all in the same language. There were times it didn't seem to be. Even the rules on the pictographs seemed to change.

Maybe the writing was nothing more than Rumplestiltskin's idea of a joke, bits and pieces cobbled together from a dozen other writings while the real spells were hidden somewhere else. Maybe she was wasting her time.

The bell rang, and she looked up to see Emma coming in. "Hey, Belle, how's it going?" the sheriff asked. "Having any luck? Killian said he thought you were having trouble."

Meaning Killian sent the sheriff over to make sure Belle stayed on task, Belle thought. Then she chided herself. Jones wanted this done as badly as she did. Her husband had forced Jones to trap the fairies, among other innocents. He'd almost trapped  _Emma._ She was Henry's  _mother,_ and he'd been willing to do that to her.

Had Belle ever known him at all?

"Not really," Belle said. "At least, I have some new potion ingredients. I suppose Jones told you how Professor Longneaux brought them over?"

"What?" Emma said. "No, I hadn't heard. Uh . . . what kind of ingredients?"

Belle recognized that hesitation. It meant,  _How gross are these ingredients?_ And,  _Am I going to have to arrest somebody if I know too much about it?_

Did Emma really think Belle would have something like that here? Belle thought of all the eyes that seemed to be always following her, judging. She thought of the whispers, the ones she wasn't supposed to overhear and the ones she was. Did Emma think Belle had been helping Rumple? That she had been in on his plan to kill Jones, only to turn on him at the last minute? Why? It didn't make any sense.

Belle had used Rumple's dagger against him, exiling him from everything he knew and loved. How could anything make sense after that?

"Plants," Belle said. "She's a botany professor. She has samples and records on everything growing around Storybrooke. You didn't know about her?"

"No, should I?"

When Jones had found her at Granny's, he'd talked about 'the rest of  _us_ ' solving the town's problems. It had sounded to Belle as if the whole, royal family had been waiting by the door.

Will said he just liked to boss people around—to boss  _her_ around. Because she'd saved him. Because she'd seen him at his weakest, and he couldn't forgive that.

"It doesn't matter," Belle said. "It's just that she's been a great help. Was there something I could do for you?"

"No, not really. I just—look, I thought maybe you should know. Keith got arrested this morning. He may have committed a burglary. He was found passed out in the alley behind your shop. I know you like him, but it's possible he may have broken in here or in one of the other stores. I'm checking if anyone has any stock missing. It would be really bad if he got anything from your place."

"I . . . no," Belle said. "Not that I've noticed. What—what did he say he'd been doing?"

"He hasn't," Emma said. "Not yet. He, uh, he was pretty drunk when I took him in." The sheriff looked uncomfortable. Of course, she thought Belle _liked_  Keith Notting, as unbelievable as that was.

Will stepped over. "Oh, yeah, that's the Sheriff of Snottingham for you. The man never could hold his liquor."

Emma's eyes widened. She either hadn't noticed Will or had just assumed he was a nameless customer wandering around. "What are you doing here?"

Will held up a container of stinging-nettles. "Community service. What's it look like? I was caught ripping up library books, remember?"

"He's helping me stock the materials Professor Longneaux brought over," Belle said.

"Seriously? And you trust him not to steal you blind while he's doing it?"

"Hey!" Will objected. "I wouldn't rob this place. What do you think I am?"

"A thief. Remember? You told me that yourself the first time I met you."

"See? Only an honest man would have admitted that, right? So, you know you can trust me."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. . . ."

"Oh, that hurts, Sheriff. That really hurts. Man's inhumanity to man, that's what they call this."

"No, inhumanity is when I lock you in jail again. Did you have anything to do with Notting's break-in last night?"

"First, I work alone. Second, we'll get a postcard from Ice Queen Ingrid about how fun it is making her new home in Hell freeze over before I would ever work with Snotty—sorry, Keith Notting. You've got your bloody super power. Tell me if I'm telling the truth or not."

Belle could see Will had scored a point. She could also see Emma didn't want to concede it, so the sheriff changed the subject. "Why do you keep calling him that? Snotty, Snottingham? Did you know him back in the Enchanted Forest?"

It was Will's turn to roll his eyes. "Of course, I knew him. I told you I was with the Merry Men, didn't I? I know the secret handshake and everything. Not that it's that secret. It's just that they cut your hand when you join. Great way to say hello to a bloke. Keith was the bloody Sheriff of Nottingham. You two ought to sit down and discuss locking up people who haven't done anything. Bet you'd be like soul mates or something."

"The sheriff of Nottingham?" Emma said. "Wait—was he one of the people who are like the stories? Or one of the ones who aren't? I mean, was he like Hansel and Gretel almost getting eaten by a witch or was he more like Red Riding Hood being the Big Bad Wolf?"

"Huh? I thought that was Doctor Who. Or Rose Taylor."

"He was like the stories," Belle said. "Or he was when I met him back there."

"What? I thought you liked him?"

All the exhaustion and numbness inside of Belle started to boil over.  _No, I can't lose my temper,_ she told herself. Emma would just think she'd gotten hysterical. Belle remembered when she'd lost her memory and been put back in the hospital. She'd seen magic and hadn't understood what it was. People thought it was easier to drug her into sleep rather than find a way to answer her questions.

People, she thought. Not Rumple. Rumple had tried to tell her, had tried to explain it to her. She'd been afraid at first. But, in the end, she'd known she trusted him—trusted him more than the strangers who said they were her friends who stood by while a nurse put a needle in her arm when she accused them of lying to her.

Rumple had told her the truth. She thought he would always tell her the truth, the one person in this town she could trust not to lie to her.

That's why it had cut so deep when he had. Ruby, Emma, even her father, they'd all lied to her. They said it was for her own good, but their real reason was that it was so much easier than telling her the truth. He'd never done that to her.

Until he had.

"I don't like him," Belle grated. "Jones likes him. You'll have to ask him why."

"Huh? But—"

"Do you want to know why I'm sure nothing was stolen from this shop last night, Emma? Because—" No, she couldn't tell Emma what Keith had done. Hadn't done. Had almost—No, she couldn't say it. Wouldn't think about it. But, there was something she could say that maybe Emma would understand. "I—I saw him." There. That was safe to say. Wasn't it? "Outside the store. I was tired and I didn't want to—to—I didn't want to deal with him. And there was work to do here. I stayed. I fell asleep in the backroom. I would have noticed Keith trying to break in."

Emma looked at her uncertainly, but nothing Belle had said was a lie. Her sixth sense or whatever it was would be telling her Belle had spoken the truth. She just didn't want to believe it.

"Killian says he's a good guy," Emma said unsurely. "Maybe he's changed? A lot of people have since the curse."

Will gave a snorting laugh through his nose. "Oh, paper-masks, is that what you're thinking?"

Emma was at sea again. "Paper-masks?"

"It's a story from our world," Belle said. "There was a man, a mighty warrior, who fell in love with a beautiful maiden. But, he was a man who had nurtured hate and anger all his life, and the marks of it were written all over his face."

"Like Conan the Barbarian," Will said, trying to be helpful. "Or maybe the Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger on a really bad day."

"So, he went to a mask-maker, the best one in all our world. He made him a mask that looked like a real face. Every line in it looked kind and gentle. But, the mask maker warned him. It was made out of paper so thin and delicate that if he ever let anger or rage show on his face, it would break the mask and the truth would be known.

"The warrior wore the mask and won the maiden's heart. For forty years, he was patient and kind. Then, his wife died. He gave way to terrible grief and pain at his loss. The mask crumbled away. He was terrified. He thought his own children and family wouldn't recognize him. But, when he looked in the mirror, he saw that, after forty years, his face had become the mask."

"Yeah," Will said. "There's a  _Twilight Zone_  episode in this world that tells almost the same story. Except, those were bad masks. Unless it was  _Outer Limits_. No, the  _Outer Limits_  was an alien. Anyhow, Snotty never watched those. And he's still a drunk and a jerk."

Emma was still giving Will suspicious looks when she left to check on the other stores, but Belle supposed she was trying to be helpful. All the same, she heaved a sigh of relief when the sheriff left.

"She's trying," Will said. "And she can tell when people are telling the truth. If you told her what Snotty did—"

"No," Belle said. "Emma's power doesn't always work. Especially when she doesn't want to believe it." Magic and belief, they went hand in hand with each other. Sometimes, Belle wondered if the World Without Magic was the way it was because it had no magic—or if it was this way because people  _believed_ it had no magic. And that made it true.

"Why wouldn't she want to believe it?"

"You saw her. She can't even believe Jones was wrong about one of his friends."

Will gave another snort. "Oh, I don't think he was  _wrong._  I think he knows exactly what his friend is like."

Belle nodded soberly. "Yes. And I know what it's like when you need to believe the person you love isn't—isn't like that."

"Oh," Will said. He looked away. "Yeah. I get that." He looked over at the counter and Belle's stacks of books and notes. "What is that you're working on, anyway?"

"The spell for the magic hat," Belle said. "I'm trying to free the fairies. But, I can't understand more than one world in ten—and I'm not sure I have those right. I'm making some progress," she added. "When I started, it was barely one word in twenty. But, no one in Storybrooke even knows these languages. I only have Rumple's notes, and it's so hard. . . ."

Will walked over to the counter while she was talking. "You ever see  _Alien vs Predator_?" he asked.

"Did I ever see what?"

" _Alien vs Predator._ It's a great movie. Uh, except just about everybody dies. But, they go down fighting Aliens  _and_ Predators. It's great."

"Will. . . ."

"But, see, there are these hieroglyphics or something that have all this weird writing. It's supposed to be a mix of Egyptian and Mayan and Chinese and stuff. Some of these are like that. And  _Stargate_.  _Stargate_  had stuff that was supposed to be like Egyptian writing. Sort of. It took their professor guy maybe a quarter of the movie to figure it out."

"You—you think this looks like writing from this world?"

"Really old stuff, yeah."

Belle stared at her books. Could it really be this simple? "How?" she breathed. "How could someone from this world know ancient languages from our world?"

Will shrugged. "How do people from this world know stories about people in our world? You really think dreaming written notes is harder than getting the right names for seven dwarves you've never met?"

"But—but—it's incredible— _how—_ "

"OK, fine, maybe  _we_  dreamed up  _their_ language. That's not the point. The point is maybe somebody in this world can figure this out even if we can't. Just find a professor or something."

"A professor," Belle whispered. It couldn't be this easy. Could it? "But . . . we can't leave Storybrooke. How can we even find one?"

"Internet still works for some things, doesn't it? Try that," Will said. Since Storybrooke had been cut off, some things would cross the town line and some wouldn't. Even words. Even information.

"I tried," Belle said. "I tried to find out what happened to Rumple. Regina's tried to find out about Robin. He said he would call her, if he could. She said she would try to send him more money. It doesn't work." Or maybe Robin needed to make the _right_ call, whatever that was.  Maybe Rumple did, too.

"But, food gets in," Will said. "Stuff gets delivered the way it's supposed to, and money pops out of accounts to pay for it. Something normal could get through."

"Normal," Belle said. "We're looking for the translation of a spell."

"The sheriff can still get calls from other sheriffs and lawyers and stuff," Will said. "A couple came through while I was locked up. And I know she was checking her email. What about that professor, Longneaux? If the curse told her she knew other professors, maybe she does. Or they think she does. Maybe she can get a message to one of them. It's worth a try, ain't it?"

X

The night before last, Rumplestiltskin had walked down a dark street, reveling in the lack of pain in his leg. It was late, but he wasn't a man for taking risks. Besides, Storybrooke had a larger share of creatures that walked the night than most small towns. Small bits of magic diverted the eyes of anyone who might otherwise see him pass.

Maleficent, meanwhile, growled with impatience. "You promised me my body, Rumplestiltskin," she reminded him.

"And you will have it," he said. "Very soon. But, things must be done in order." He looked at the dilapidated building they were approaching. "There are some things that will make life back in Storybrooke easier for both of us. Once you're alive again, that is. How many times have you been killed in this world? Three? You really must be more careful, dearie."

Maleficent growled again. "And what is it that will keep me from dying a fourth time?"

"A bit of paper," the Dark One said. "Be very careful not to break it."

 


	8. The Search for Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle encounters one version of Thumbelina. There is also a fairy tale about Maleficent.

As Belle gathered her things, she noticed a leather bound book lying in the box of jars. She picked it up, wondering if it had slipped in by accident. The cover had been tooled and embossed, showing a collection of flowers and plants. A sheaf of barley lay along asphodel, white wood asters, and pomegranates. Dozens of post-its stuck out along the edge. She opened it and found sketches and notes on various plants. She noticed some of the things written on the post-its.  _Myth of Narcissus, Legend of the Snapdragon, Folklore—Willow Tree._ It seemed to be a collection of tales and traditions of different plants, all of them written out in the same handwriting that was on the jars the professor had labeled. She would want it back, Belle thought, when she noticed one note that didn't quite fit with the rest,  _Thumbling._

It sounded like a fairy tale.  The library had been closed during the curse, Belle knew.  The people of Storybrooke had all vaguely recollected the stories that were fairy tales in this world and history and facts in their own.  But, she didn’t think they’d ever mentioned them or even thought about them till Henry and Emma had begun to do their part to wear away at the curse.  She’d never heard of anyone writing one down.

Curious, Belle opened to the page the post-it was on.  Just as she’d thought, it was a fairy tale. Unlike the bits of folklore in the rest of the book, this one seemed only loosely connected with plants.  Notes along the margin said it had been taken from another book, _Forgotten_ _Märchen_.

 _Märchen_.  Belle knew that was a scholar’s word in this world for any kind of folklore: tall tales, legends, humorous anecdotes—and fairy tales. Without meaning to, Belle found herself reading it.

_Thumbling_

_Once upon a time, there was an old woman who longed for a child. A fairy heard her wish._

Belle snorted.  No matter what the stories in this world said, Rumplestiltskin had answered more requests for children in their own world than the fairies ever had.  The fairies had strange rules about what they could and couldn’t do.  Children were rarely part of them.  Still, she supposed there’d been times fairies had granted those wishes for children instead of her husband.

_Dressed in yellow sunlight, the fairy flew down from the sky at dusk, riding one of the last rays of the fading light. No bigger than the old woman's outstretched hand, the fairy held in her arms an even smaller cradle made from walnut shell. Curled up asleep inside beneath a blanket of rose petals was a tiny baby, no bigger than her thumb._

" _You must give her no name," the fairy warned. "She must find her own—or not—in time. But, if you will promise to leave her nameless, then she shall be your daughter and you shall be her mother._

No name.  Belle had spent twenty-eight years alone in a dark cell with no name, not even a false one.  A bullet in her shoulder, a little over an inch from her heart, had trapped her in that same void once again. 

This might be just a story, she reminded herself.  Like the story of this world that said her friend Ruby had killed the wolf that threatened her—and the much worse one to read, the one that said Belle had only abandoned her beast and left him to die by accident.  She hadn’t found his greatest weakness, his greatest fear , and deliberately turned against him with it. People in this world said many things that weren’t true.

The next bit was circled with “ Prsp&Dmtr? ” scrawled at the side. Belle frowned, not sure what it meant.

" _And, know this as well. You must feed her only barleycorn and water. For the day she tastes any flowering thing or the fruit thereof, you shall surely lose her."_

Prsp&Dmtr. Barleycorn and water. Flowers and fruit.

Belle remembered some of the myths of this world  A harvest goddess, Demeter, had had her daughter, Persephone, stolen away to the underworld.  The goddess searched for her.  While her daughter remained lost, the goddess would drink no wine, only a plain drink made of water and barleycorn.

Persephone had been gathering flowers when she was stolen away.  A bright, red poppy was said to mark the spot where she was stolen.  But, the story in this world said, if she ate any fruit that grew in the underworld, she would be lost to her mother forever. This story said the same thing, didn’t it? Fruit and flowers would steal her away.  Yet, it seemed to Belle, that the shuttered world of her mother’s house was the one the girl needed to escape.

_The old woman promised and took the tiny infant. Though so very small, she was perfectly formed. She was also wingless. Whatever she is, the old woman thought, she cannot be a fairy._

And that didn’t raise any red flags at all, did it?

_She called the babe her little treasure but, true to her promise, never gave her a name. Other folk, however, called her Thimble or Thumbling because she was so very small._

_But, guard her as she might, the day came when trouble found them. It was when Thumbling was on the brink of womanhood. On that day, the old woman brought in great armfuls of flowers to make the house bright and merry. Though Thumbling had been warned time and again not to touch them, as she stood beneath the blossoms, admiring them, a drop of nectar mixed with dew fell from one of the petals straight onto Thumbling's hand. Without thinking, she lifted the droplet to her lips. As she tasted the nectar, golden sparks of magic flew from Thumbling's fingers._

_Now, magic, once woken, cannot simply be set to sleep again—_

Belle thought of Rumple.  No, it couldn’t be.  Even if he wanted to, even if he tried, he couldn’t just put it aside.

_The old woman knew that Thumbling must go out into the world to seek her fate and to learn the name that truly belonged to her. The tale of her adventures is long and cannot all be given here. There is the tale of the cricket she met who spoke like a man. There is a tale of how she met a dwarf who lived deep in the earth, like a mole, who fell in love with her and would have married her had not a fairy, blue as a robin's egg, come down at the last moment and carried her away._

_But, at the end of her many adventures, Thumbling was taken to the queen of the fairies, who said to her, "Poor child! You are one of us. Long have we searched for you. See? Here are your wings. They were stolen from you, but we found them and kept them safe. Take them and take also your place among us. We have kept your name safe all this time in hopes of one day returning it to you. You are the youngest and newest of all the fairies who dwell in the sky. . . ."_

The story broke off abruptly. There were more notes at the bottom, but they were only references to different editions and possible source materials.  The story of Thumbling ended there.

X

Maleficent had chafed with impatience, but Rumplestiltskin was determined to take care of his business first. Grudgingly—she was hardly going to tell him—she admitted to herself she couldn’t blame him.  She would do the same in his position. She blamed him anyway. It had been too long. Twenty-eight years as nothing more than a wandering spirit, only her animal anger left behind in her true body to keep her dragon form alive. She wanted to be back in her own flesh and bones.

Of course, she had lost even her ghost life when That Woman—the one who reminded her so much of the yellow fairy—had killed the old wizard who had given her soul a haven for all those years.  His sudden death had cut the thread binding Maleficent to that life even as she was gathering her power to strike That Woman dead. Maleficent had been plunged back into the sleeping void till the stirring of power had woken her—the Savior's promise to defend her new land.

But, the self that woke in Storybrooke, unlike the one that had wandered this world, was nothing more than a beast.  Not long after, she had scented something in the dark tunnels. She had not remembered what it was, but something in it stirred her fury. She knew it now. It mixed the scent of the warrior who had dared attack her in her own castle and the smell of Rumplestiltskin.

"That would be Henry," Rumplestiltskin told her as they made the long trek back to Storybrooke. "My grandson."

"Grandson?"

"His father is dead," Rumplestiltskin said it flatly, his cold voice clearly warning her not to ask any of the questions burning through her. Changing the subject, he said, "The boy's mother is the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White."

"His mother? She's the one who killed me?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean the second time. Yes, I suppose she did. Don't hold it against her. It's not as if it took."

Maleficent had followed the boy's scent, hunting the intruder in her realm, only to have him slip away into the light. "I suppose it's just as well I didn't harm the boy, then."

"Indeed. And it would be just as well if you  _continued_ not to harm him, if you take my meaning."

His meaning, Maleficent thought, was that Rumplestiltskin made a far worse enemy than any demon—or any army of demons. "I see."

"I'm sure you do. But, what about the third time you died? How did a pirate with one hand get the better of you?"

"He was protected from magic," Maleficent snapped, feeling needled. "That left me nothing to fight with but my other body.  It’s nearly dead, just a gathering of ashes. I couldn't change into a dragon or anything else remotely useful.  He didn’t need to be all that good to beat me."

"Protected? Oh, that would have been a gauntlet he had.  It could be made to protect the wearer, I suppose. It was a gift from the demon, Pan, the child-stealer."

"Child-stealer." Old memories and older pains gnawed at her. "There are some people who call you that."

"I never took a child who wasn't freely bartered away to me—and, for what it's worth, I tried to keep them from harm. Pan took them because having a little army of sycophants to play with amused him."

"An army? Of children?"

"Oh, yes," there was something dark in Rumplestiltskin's voice, a deadlier warning than when he'd mentioned the father of his grandson who was dead. "It wasn't about winning battles with him. It was about keeping himself from being bored. Sometimes they bled. Sometimes they died. Sometimes someone else did. It all depended on what amused him."

"Should I be worried about him?"

"Not anymore. He's dead—a little more thoroughly than you were. He never had the thing you want."

"But, you do."

"Not because I took it. Let's just say that you and I have some common enemies, ones I've kept an eye on. And, unlike some people here, I've made a habit of reading storybooks."

"Is that why we're looking for this friend of yours?"

"Oh, I wouldn't call him a friend, not yet. We haven't even been formally introduced, but I believe he'll accept the deal we have to offer. After all, we have exactly what he needs."

"And the rest?"

"There's a storybook in the convent library that has your true story—allowing for a few modifications from the Mother Superior. I've told you, I know what you want and I know how to get past the protections the Blue Fairy put around it. But, first, we need to find our thief. He comes very highly recommended."

X

_The Fairy Fortunata_

_The story is told how, once, a fairy, Fortunata, was given guardianship over a young and handsome prince, who she guided through many adventures, giving him all that he required and more. In the end, though it was against all the laws of her kind, she gave him her heart as well, and he gave her his in return. The two plighted their troth in secret but, on the day the two were joined as husband and wife, the fairy's wings shriveled and turned to dust. Yet, Fortunata regarded it not, so great was her love for her prince._

_But, the prince's family was not happy with their new daughter-in-law when the prince brought her home in joy to meet them. For, they thought, surely the Queen of the Fairies would turn her face against them if they welcomed this fallen member of her kind. So, they shut the gates against her and would not let her pass their threshold._

_The prince sorrowed, and Fortunata wept that she should be the cause of such grief to the one she loved. But, the prince told her to be of good cheer for, though his family had cast him off, their love would sustain them. They dwelt in a cottage in the woods, far from the eyes of friends or foes. There, they were happy for a time._

_But, sorrow must come to all, be it soon or late. It happened one day, as the prince was hunting in the forest, that he met his father's uncle as the old man rode among the trees. His great-uncle chided the prince for the grief he caused their clan. But, the prince answered him boldly, telling of his great love for the fairy Fortunata. In the end, the old man seemed much moved by the tale. "Come with me to my castle," he told the prince. "This day is a great feast appointed and your father and mother shall be among my guests. Let me intercede with them that perhaps their hearts may be softened towards you and your love."_

_With great joy, the prince rode with his uncle. But, his uncle spoke falsely and the prince was riding into a trap. For the anger of the Queen of the Fairies had not lessened in all this time, and it was she who had sent the old man riding through the forest where she knew he would chance to meet his nephew._

_When the king and queen came to the castle, they brought with them a young princess, daughter of a neighboring king. She was as beautiful as the dawn, so it was said. The young prince, when he rode through the castle gates and dismounted, was given a glass of wine. It had been brewed by the Queen of the Fairies herself. The moment it touched his lips, he forgot Fortunata, still waiting for him in the woods. For a moment, he struggled, thinking he had lost something of great importance. Then, his eyes fell on the young princess, and it seemed to him he had found it. Surely, he thought, this is the woman I love._

_Long and long did Fortunata await her prince's return. Days turned into weeks and weeks to months, but he did not return to her. She searched the woods, thinking some ill had befallen him, and called down the ravens, bidding them to seek and speak their secrets to her. At last, an ancient rook returned to her. In a croaking voice, he said, "As I flew over the village that lies at the forest's edge, I saw the people dancing and feasting. As I flew closer to learn the cause of all their joy, I heard them bid a traveler join them. 'Rejoice!' the people said. 'For, though our prince long lay under an enchantment by an evil fairy, he has, at last, been freed! Today, our prince has taken himself a new bride!'"_

_In grief, Fortunata returned to the small cottage where she and the prince had lived so happily. There, a new sorrow awaited her. For, in the time since her prince had left her, she had born him an infant daughter, perfect in every way, down to the lovely wings on her back. But, when Fortunata looked in the cradle where she had left the sleeping child, the she was gone._

_Then, Fortunata's grief turned to rage. For, though only a fairy could have borne her child away, protected as she was by Fortunata's spells, only her husband could have given one her lost sisters entrance._

_As the fury burned within her, her body twisted and changed. "Fortunata no longer, but Maleficent," she said, as the black flames of her anger consumed her and she rose from them, a dragon. . . ._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started working on this before Lily was introduced. Maleficent in this story was a fairy who lost her wings for love. She had a daughter but that daughter isn't Lily. In the original version of Thumbelina, she is almost forced to marry a mole before running away at the last moment. As Dwarves are people who like to live below the earth and dig, it seemed an appropriate, Once-like switch. It also seemed like something Once would do for Thumbelina to have wanted to marry her ugly fiance, and that being taken in by the fairies didn't mean finding her true place in the world.


	9. Needful Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle knows the first step in freeing the fairies. Will meets Rumplestiltskin.

Belle texted Professor Longneaux. The professor might be an old woman, but she'd told Belle she preferred messages she could read to ones that were spoken. "I do a great deal of work on my computer when I'm not working outside with plants, recording the data and so on," she'd said. "It's easier to just keep typing."

Some of the older people of this world disliked its ever changing technology, but Rumple hadn’t minded texting.  Of course, he could make a phone send whatever message he wanted just by looking at it. Belle supposed it was easier than altering the security cameras in the jail to show Zelena taking her own life.  But, Rumple had preferred spoken words.  As he’d told her, “People give more away with their voice.”

Professor Longneaux thought she knew someone who could help with the translations, a man from Oxford. She promised to forward the data Belle sent her to him, along with a story they concocted to explain it. The professor would say the documents had been found in the attic of an old house in Storybrooke. They would blame an old scholar who had lived there in the 19th century, one with a reputation for having an odd sense of humor. That gave them room to say they didn't know if the documents were something real or the last practical joke of a dotty New Englander. Hopefully, that that room was large enough to explain magic hats, demon wizards, and anything else that might come up in them.

Belle hesitated but as they finished up their plan. At the very end, she texted one more message.

_I found a notebook of yours with the herbs._

Belle wasn't sure why but she held her breath, waiting for the reply.

_Oh, did you? I'm always leaving those lying about. Which one is it?_

Not a guilty response, Belle thought, not sure why she thought it should be. _It's tooled leather with a lot of plants and fruit on the front. It has notes on plants and folktales about them._ She paused before adding, _One of them is about Thumbelina._

 _I know the one,_ Professor Longneaux sent back. _If you could just put it aside, I'll come back for it later. I'm trying to get ahold of Princess Aurora. Did you know she might have some thorns from the bushes that grew around her castle? I'd love to examine some of those._

 _Tell me if you get some,_ Belle texted, looking at some of the potion books. _I think I could find a use for them. Just be sure to call ahead before you come over for the notebook or any other business. I may be in and out today._ She picked up the notebook again, looking over the story.

"Something wrong?"

Will's voice broke through whatever trance Belle had been in. She looked up. "Nothing," Belle said. "Except . . . the professor has notes on myths and legends connected to plants. There's a version of Thumbelina in here but it's not like any I know."

"Oh, one of those," Will said. "You wondering if it's like that book the sheriff's kid lugs around? A real story?"

"Maybe. Instead of a mole, it says a Dwarf wanted to marry her."

"Be too tall, wouldn't he? Thumbelina was, what, three inches? Can't see Tom Clark leading her down the aisle."

"Thumbelina was a fairy, if this story is telling the truth. She should have been able to make herself big." She wasn't sure how much of Dreamy—no, Grumpy—no _Leroy's_ story she should share with someone else. Better not to give him names and details, she decided. "I—I knew a Dwarf who fell in love with a fairy."

Will sat up and took notice. "Really? A Dwarf? I thought those guys didn't do that. Hatch out of rocks, don't they?"

"They do. But, he still fell in love. And I knew the fairy." She supposed she had to give him this much. "She's Sister Astrid in this world."

"Sister? Oh, bloody hell. She's in the hat?"

Belle shook her head. "I don't think so." She'd been trying to remember everything that had happened that terrible day, the last day before she learned the truth about Rumplestiltskin. Or what she thought was the truth. She'd spent it helping the fairies, trying to find a way to defeat Ingrid's curse.

Until Rumple trapped them all. Or trapped all the ones who were there working on a counterspell.

"Sister Astrid wasn't at Granny's. She's. . . ." Belle tried to think of a polite way to say it. "She can be accident prone. Especially when she's nervous. I think the Mother Superior—the Blue Fairy—must have sent her away or left her at the convent."

"You'd think she would have shown up by now if she was still around. Or maybe somebody got her during the Shattered Sight Spell?"

 _Leroy_ , Belle thought. He'd been in love with Astrid and she'd broken his heart. If he'd run into her while under that spell, when all he could remember when he saw her was his pain and his hurt—or if Astrid had only been able to remember her own pain at how Leroy had turned on her. . . . Belle closed her eyes, trying not to see Rumple's face again as she ordered him over the town line.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

No, she'd seen Leroy since then. She'd heard his muddled sympathy as he told her she was better off without Rumplestiltskin. Belle knew how you acted when you'd destroyed the thing you loved most. Leroy hadn't done that.

"The convent," she told Will. "We have to look at the convent." Because, if Astrid was there, if they could find her—then they could get all the fairies out of the hat.

X

Will asked if he could drive as they got into Cadillac. Mrs. Gold gave him a wan smile. "I'm the only one my husband let's drive this car." Then her face changed. He could almost see the words she'd said registering, _My husband._ Her smile curled up, wounded, and vanished inside.

He didn't argue, but it wasn't just car lust that made him ask (not that he—and probably every man in Storybrooke—wasn't dying for a chance to get behind the wheel of this beauty). Mrs. Gold looked like she might pass out from exhaustion at any moment. That wasn't something he really wanted in a driver.

He tried to keep her talking as they headed out, keeping one eye on Mrs. Gold and another on the road. But, she had the grim, adrenalized look of a person with a plan. Or the beginnings of a plan.

"Blood," she told him. "There's a globe in Rumple's shop. With a drop of blood, you can trace where to find someone connected to you by blood. There are other spells that could summon someone with a drop of their blood. All the fairies in this world are family. Sort of. If Astrid's still here, if we can find her, there may be a way to get the other fairies. I think—maybe—the bits and pieces I was able to translate—I still need to know more—but I think it could work."

"So, we're going to search the convent for an enchanted fairy so we can use her to rescue a bunch of other enchanted fairies so they can unenchant the first fairy? Have I got that?"

"Uh . . . not exactly. People have been up to the convent before. _I've_ been up there, when I was looking for books to help free the others. One of us would have found her if she was someplace obvious—"

"Bloody hell!" Will exclaimed as Mrs. Gold almost didn't make a turn. "Watch the road!" When his heart calmed down a little, he said, "They've got a mausoleum or something there haven't they? You don't suppose they stuck her in a crypt? It would be a good place to hide someone, like Snow White in a glass coffin. Except harder to see through."

Mrs. Gold shuddered. "I hope not. The last thing I want to do is break into a bunch of graves."

"Aw, there won't be any fairies in them. They don't die much, do they?"

"Not much isn't the same as never. There may be graves brought over from our world. Or there might be other people's bodies in them. Or things besides bodies."

"Yeah, guess that sounds like Evil Queen humor. Trust me. I've known some. Afraid we'll let out a bunch of ghouls? I fought a zombie army once. Don't worry about it."

She looked at him skeptically. "Are you going to tell me it's not that bad?"

"Nah, are you nuts? You stick a knife in them. They get up again. It stinks. The good thing is, if that's what you're fighting, you won't have time to worry. You'll be too busy staying alive. Or being dead." He waited. "That was a joke. You're supposed to laugh."

"Really?" Her voice was tight and strained. "Then it didn't work, did it?" Yeah, people who were at the end of their rope had no sense of humor. He should have remembered that. Mrs. Gold was holding it together but (he looked guiltily at the bruise on her cheek) it was a near thing. "I have something else that might help us find Astrid," Mrs. Gold said. "There's just one problem. We need something that was hers— _just_ hers and no one else's."

"Why's that a problem?"

"Because the nuns didn't have private property. Everything they own belongs to the order. Or it's supposed to."

Oh, great. "Just checking. So, the plan is we break into a convent to steal something that belonged to a nun except nuns don't have anything that belongs to them. Once we manage that, _then_ we find the enchanted nun to find the other enchanted nuns so they can unenchant the first nun. Have I got that right this time or is there still more?"

"We're not breaking in. I know where the keys are."

"Trust me, even if you've got the keys, people still call it breaking in when they find you going through their stuff and call the cops. I say we go with my plan and smash open some crypts."

X

The night before last, Rumplestiltskin had taken Maleficent, still in the body of an iron dragon, to a certain apartment building. He had no trouble finding the room he wanted. New York may have sometimes confused him, but he knew every brick and stone in Storybrooke—and he knew where every man, woman, child, and quite a few of the sewer rats lived. The man he wanted was here.

He cast one spell before opening the door. No reason for any phone calls—or screams—to go beyond this door. Some conversations were best kept private. Rumplestiltskin went inside and turned on the light. Yes, there the fellow was, asleep on the couch, arms curled around a children's book.

"Dead drunk," Maleficent said. "Are you sure this is what you need?"

"Quite sure," Rumplestiltskin said. "Even Cora found this one useful." He snapped his fingers over the man, clearing the alcohol from his system and waking him at the same time.

Will Scarlet rubbed his eyes then looked up at the man standing over him. Any tiredness vanished at once. He started to swear.

"Now, now, dearie," Rumplestiltskin said. "Is that any way to treat the man who is about to make all your dreams come true? Oh, yes. I know exactly what it is you want and—in return for one, very small thing—I'm prepared to give it to you." He smiled coldly. "For your sake, I suggest you agree."


	10. Nothing Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maleficent wants her body back. Belle realizes Nova may not be in the hat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Queens of Darkness are not in this story, just Maleficent. Rumplestiltskin has a different plan for Maleficent to get her body back than in the show.
> 
> The title is from Spenser's Faerie Queene, "For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.

_The evening before, Maleficent, her toy body clutched tight in the Dark One’s hand, waited with him for the library to close, trying to hold back her impatience._

There was one reason—and only one—for Maleficent to come back to this town.

Oh, there was Rumplestiltskin's promise to revive her. She had not sent out her dreaming mind to find a new host since the last one, the Dragon, died.  She wasn’t even sure she could.  What she’d done before had involved her dreaming mind, a mind still anchored in a living body.  With her mind awakened and her body gone, she wasn't sure she could have done it.

And . . . she'd rather _liked_ the old man. They’d shared a taste for fine tea, and she’d always been amused with the stern, paternal glares he gave his patients (sometimes accompanied by stern, paternal lectures). She'd  _tried_ to get used to his odd taste for poems and three thousand year old classics, but that was an uphill battle. At least their link had grown strong enough he'd understood when she told him she  _had_ to see  _Gone with the Wind_ again. She wasn't sure she was ready to move on to someone new, even if she could.

But, the Dark One had promised her child was here. Her  _daughter_ was here.

It was the day after Rumplestiltskin made his deal with Will Scarlet.  There were many things to take care of but, that evening, they went to the library, waiting till it was locked up by his little  _wife_  (not at all surprising, she thought, though she'd still been surprised. True, she'd seen how Rumplestiltskin had looked at his little serving maid—and she'd seen his fury at Maleficent and her friends for daring to harm her. She'd felt that way herself once and could have warned him how miserably it would end. But, who would think the  _Dark One_  needed to be warned about what the future would bring?). At least, the little woman was finally done with her collection of books and ready to trot off to her other job. Maleficent wondered when the scrawny thing slept. Or had Rumple found a way to share some of the magic that made rest unnecessary for him?

Well, the important thing was that he knew how to open a lock, not his domestic arrangements. They quietly stepped out of the shadows and into the dark building.

It wasn't like the library in New York. People were known to hold  _weddings_ in that building (Maleficent, listening to the ruckus of some of those ceremonies, hadn't been sure if she should be toasting the bride and groom or—more true to form—cursing them and their yet-to-be-born offspring). But, she had recognized an affinity between two the places when she curled up there to lick her ethereal wounds. She'd tried to get Rumplestiltskin to tell her how he'd known to find her there, but he only smiled in that very smug way of his and didn't answer.

From the library, they went down into the caverns that lay deep beneath the town. To the small figurine now held in the Dark One’s hand, it looked enormous. Her dragon-self had found it comfortably snug. He took her down to the place where the pompous captain had killed her after Regina’s spell made her dead body rise up and fight him.  Or fight him as well as she’d been able.  She wondered if she’d have found the strength to stop him if she’d known he was hooked hand in glove with the woman who’d murdered the old man—or that what he was doing would kill everyone in the town, including her daughter. 

The Dark One moved his hand as though he were gathering something out of the air, and her ashes began to race across the floor, forming a small pile. It was rather disturbing, she thought, looking down at her own corpse, even in this condition.

Then he set her down on the small, gray pile. She was perched on top of her own, cold remains. No, nothing at all eerie about this.

"Now, what?" Maleficent asked.

"Breathe life into them.  Make them burn."

"What? They've  _been_ burned. I can't—" she wouldn't say she didn't have the power. Even now, three times dead and trapped in a role player’s D&D figurine, she hadn't been brought that low.

"You can," he said. "Find your anger. Your fire is there."

Magic and emotion, two twins. Maleficent thought of Stefan abandoning her for that arranged marriage with his little Briar Rose. She thought of her anger at the Yellow Fairy, who had helped Stefan's family lure him away and then stolen their child.

But, Stefan and Briar Rose were dead, and not by her hand. The Yellow Fairy had overstepped her bounds one time too many and brought Rumplestiltskin's wrath down on her head. The anger she felt burned cold.

"You know," Rumplestiltskin said. "I found out the details of what happened to your daughter. There was a poor widow who longed for a child, and a fairy—one dressed in yellow—brought her a tiny baby in cradle made out of a walnut seed."

"That's not possible," Maleficent said. "My baby was born human sized. She couldn't fit in something that small."

"She was half-fairy, wasn't she? Even that young, she could take on her fairy form or be pushed into it by the right spells.

“But, do you know what was the most interesting thing about that child?  The baby the widow was given didn't have wings. Curious, don't you think? I only know of one way a fairy—even a half-fairy—could be that small and not have her wings showing. Unless you know of another? If what I heard is true. . . ." he let his voice trail off.

"They cut off her wings," Maleficent whispered.

"Indeed. And they gave the old woman strict rules on how to raise her. She was never to give the girl a name, that was the first rule."

"Because names have power." Rumplestiltskin was famous for using names in his magic. But, he was hardly the only one who understood their use.

"So they do. A name is the word we choose to give our true self. And that was just what no one ever wanted your child to find. The second rule was that the old woman could only feed her barleycorn and was never, ever to give her anything from a flower."

Maleficent turned her small head, looking at him. Flowers had a special powers when fairies touched them. How could they begrudge her that? Even now, fallen as she was, Maleficent could read the history of summer days in their scent or the taste of fruit or honey.

Rumplestiltskin went on. "But, one day, quite by accident, the girl drank a drop of nectar and her magic awoke. She went out into the world to seek her true name.

"I suppose the fairies knew of it, but they did nothing to help her on her quest. Or perhaps they hoped for the best, that the child would never succeed, that she'd give up or die. Tell me, Maleficent, what do you think happens to someone that small setting off alone into the great, wide world with no magic to protect her? Or none that she knew how to use?  She couldn’t even fly."

"Stop it," she whispered. " _Stop it._ "

"Well, perhaps some things are better shared between mother and daughter. She did survive, after all, and managed—rather improbably—to have an audience with the Blue Fairy herself, who acted very happy to see her and produced a pair of wings that immediately clung to the little fairy's back. Nothing at all suspicious about that, now, is there? I’m sure they have plenty of those lying about, ready to be handed over to anyone who asks.  Oh, and they gave her a name, Nova. It meant 'new' in our world. It means the same thing here but it's also a word for a kind of star, one that has exploded and filled the world with light. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

"I'm sure the Blue Fairy would say it's better than collapsing into darkness."

"Ah, your time in the library wasn't wasted, I see. You've been reading the astronomy section?"

"Among others. What—what is she like, as a fairy?"

"Awkward. Uncertain. Her spells have a way of going wrong. Perhaps because of all the years she went without training. Perhaps because she should be learning human magic to balance her fairy skills. But, she dreams of being a fairy godmother."

"Fairy godmothers are horribly overrated," Maleficent said bitterly. "I should know. They stole my child because I dared fall in love with her father, while that yellow icicle. . . ." But, Maleficent didn't have words foul enough to say what she thought of the yellow fairy.

"She fell in love," Rumplestiltskin said. "Your daughter, not the Yellow Fairy. Although, she fell in love, too, if that's what you want to call the little thrill she must have felt every time she looked in a mirror."

"My daughter . . . fell in love? Did she—did she leave the fairies?"

"Oh, no. The Blue Fairy didn't want a repeat of all that foolishness. Nova had fallen in love with a Dwarf, of all things. And, unlikely as it sounds, he'd fallen in love with her. Blue went to him and convinced him Nova didn't know what she was doing, giving up her wings, her magic for him. He couldn't do that to her, he couldn't destroy all her dreams.

"So, he convinced her he'd never loved her, that it had been a mistake." An old pain glimmered in the Dark One's eyes, as though he were remembering something. "She didn't believe him, but he still sent her away.

"They stole your daughter and, instead of rearing her as one of them, tore of her wings and sent her to grow up in a dark hovel without even her name, living on barley bread and water. When that failed, they lied to her again. They blame her for her mistakes even though they're the ones who won't teach her what she needs to know. When she had a chance for a life of her own, they stole it from her as well. Think of that, and tell me you don't feel angry."

Maleficent remembered coming home and finding her daughter stolen. She remembered calling on her sister fairies, begging them to ignore her past, promising them anything if they would only help her find the child. She's been met with nothing but silence. When she finally was able to force a meeting with Reul Ghorm, the Blue Fairy had sniffed and told her the fairies only interfered in the lives of the pure and innocent—which Maleficent clearly was not.

They had torn off her wings.

Maleficent's cold iron turned to fire.

X

Belle fought the sense of being trapped, of the walls closing in and crushing her as she tried to look around the small cell. It wasn't sensible, she told herself. The cell— _room_ , she corrected, the nuns might call them cells but it was just a  _room—_ had cream colored walls made of plaster, not stone. The one window was small and narrow, but there were no bars on it. The door didn't even lock. It wasn't a  _cell._

There was a narrow bed, barely more than a cot, with only a thin mattress. But, it was neatly made and still looked more comfortable than the beds (if you wanted to call them that) Belle had known as Regina's prisoner. A small dresser stood against the wall, a mirror hung above it, turned against the wall. Mirrors were to be looked in only when necessary, according to the order's rules. A symbol of humility, if Belle remembered correctly. And common sense in a world where evil queens spied through mirrors.

_It isn't a cell. The door behind me is open. I can walk out any time I want._

It was too small, smaller than the holes Regina had kept her in.

The same size as the cage Zelena had kept—had  _kenneled_ Rumplestiltskin in.

"What are we looking for?" Will asked.

 _Breathe,_ Belle told herself.  _Just breathe._

"Anything personal," Belle said. "Something that was Astrid's, not the order's."

"Clothes?" Will said in a I'm-trying-not-to-say-you're-missing-the-obvious voice. He pointed to the niche where a couple plain dresses and the cloak-jacket all the nuns wore as part of their uniform hung.

Belle shook her head. "No, the clothes are communal property, too. I was told, when they do the laundry, they just sort things out by size. Then they put them in piles so each sister can pick up one."

"Bloody hell. Even  _underwear?_ "

Belle shifted, thinking of her time in the asylum. At least someone cared that the nuns got things in the right size. They also had more frequent changes, clean clothes—and bathes—once a day, if they wanted them. Maybe more, if there was cause. Belle remembered the first bath she'd had after her escape—not a quick, cold shower but a  _bath_ , soaking in hot water as long as she wanted, using rose scented soaps and bath oils. She'd suspected Rumple of conjuring them up just for her. She’d never caught him using anything like that just for himself.

Why did everything remind her of him? Why did a  _nun's cell_ remind her of his love, his kindness.

She'd thought she'd understood him, she thought she'd seen his heart. And, all the while, he was lying to her, using her to convince the others to trust him. Had that been in his mind when he danced with her after their wedding? When he led her up to that bedroom (a large, airy room where she could breathe without the walls closing in), when he gave her that smile she thought was just for her, was he only thinking how easy it was to fool her? To  _use_ her?

What was real and what wasn't? She'd thought she'd known.

It didn't change what she had to do. She had to finish this, to find him, to help.

If he needed her help. If he wanted her at all. If he ever had.

No, she couldn't think about him. Not now.

"I think it was part of the curse," she told Will. "Real nuns don't take communal property quite this far from what I’ve read."

"There's curses and there's just being nasty. Why'd the queen do  _that_ to them?"

Belle shrugged. "Maybe to keep people from doing the kind of magic we're trying. Next to Rumplestiltskin and the Savior, the fairies would have been her biggest threat. But, the curse has been broken a while now, and I don't think Astrid was ever very good at keeping the rules. She ought to have something."  _I_ hope  _she has something. "_ We're looking for anything that isn't part of a nun's uniform or—" she waved a hand, taking in the cot, the mirror, a small shelf of books (order texts and a stack of library books), "—or standard issue. Her wand, maybe?" The wands belonged to individual fairies, didn't they?

"Wouldn't a fairy be holding onto her wand, what with a curse about to fall and all that?"

"Not if she was afraid of hurting people," Belle said, opening a dresser drawer. Underwear. Will wouldn't want to see this.

"Then she'd hide it so she couldn't get at it, lock it up or something."

"Maybe," Belle said. "But, no one's seen her. She put herself under a spell. Or maybe the Blue Fairy put her under one. They meant to release her if they stopped Ingrid, but. . . ."

He nodded. "But, they aren't around to do it." His eyes widened. "Bloody hell, you think they were ready to cast it on  _themselves?_ You know, if they couldn't stop the Shattered Sight thing in time?"

"I hope so," Belle said. "That means they would have left the counterspell out where anyone could find it. Unless they had some other sort of failsafe. . . ." Or no failsafe. They'd been rushing to find a solution to Ingrid's spell. It was a little amazing they'd had the time to think about what would happen if they failed: a town under attack by an army of enraged, magical nuns.

She thought of Rumplestiltskin. Under a curse like that, he could have squashed the town flat. But, he'd been immune. Not that he couldn't be angry on his own. He'd told her something of his past. Or she thought he had—no, she trusted that much of what he'd told her. He could be angry and terrible, yes, but not like that.

No, everything he did was perfectly thought out ahead of time, wasn't it? Killing Zelena, destroying Hook. If he wrote down his plans instead of keeping everything in his head, they'd probably find things plotted out for the next five centuries, down to what he was thinking for having for breakfast half a millennium from now.

Hook said Rumplestiltskin was going to abandon the town. He'd had a plan to rescue Henry and Belle, but the rest of them could go hang.

Belle didn't know if she believed Hook or not. Her heart told her there was more to it than that. The man she knew wouldn't have just walked away. He would have tried to find a way to save them if only because he hated to be beaten on his own turf.

Or the man she thought she knew wouldn't have done that.

Will walked past the dresser, very deliberately not even looking at the drawer Belle had open. He went to the shelf and started picking up the books, holding them up and flipping the pages. Nothing came out of the  _History of the Anglican Church_ or  _The_   _Book of Common Prayer_. But, then Will got to _Rules of the Order of Saint Melissa_. A small bookmark fluttered out.

"Oops," Will said. "Lost her place." He picked up the bookmark and handed it to Belle. "Think this is personal enough?"

Belle looked at it. It was simple, homemade bookmark, piece of cardstock with a pressed flower mounted on the paper. Wax paper had been cut to fit over it and ironed on. "It's a starflower," Belle said. "From Firefly Meadow." She remembered Leroy (or Dreamy) telling her about the fairy who wanted to meet him to see the fireflies. She'd kept this all these years? Even when she didn't know what it was?

Belle thought of her chipped cup. Rumplestiltskin had kept it for twenty-eight years of the curse even though he hadn't remembered who she was—or who he was—till Emma came and his memory returned to him. There were things people held onto.

Or that they didn't hold onto. Rumple had used the cup to try and help her when she'd lost her memory at the town line, and she'd smashed it to pieces.

She'd lost herself at the town line, but he'd held onto her. Even when she turned against him, treating him like a monster, he'd done everything he could to bring her back—even when Regina filled her with false memories, making her into a person who could look at all the good in Rumple's heart and try to crush it, he hadn't let her go.

She hadn't been able to do the same for him.

Belle took the bookmark and opened up the bottle of potion she'd brought with her. "We'll have to move quickly," she told Will. "Once this touches the bookmark, it should go back to her. It won't slow down for us." She sprinkled a few drops onto the wax paper, and it began to move like a small feather caught in a breeze, floating out the door.

And they ran.

The bookmark floated uncertainly, as if it really were caught in the wind—or scenting out a trail, Belle thought, as it made another about face, swooping past them. It came at last to the Mother Superior's office, hovering unsurely in front of the closed door before tapping against the dark oak, then retreating.

"Just curious, think it's got some of Sister Astrid in it? It’s acting like a kid sent to the headmaster."

Yes, that was Sister Astrid. She bounced back and forth between childish enthusiasm and being a toddler caught with a broken cookie jar on the floor and crumbs on her face. Belle turned the brass handle, wondering if Will had the skills to open it if it was locked (and if there was a polite way to ask. Or a good way to mention she knew where Rumple's lock-picking tools were if Will didn't have any). But, apparently, the Sisters of Saint Mellissa trusted each other. It was only the front door to the outside world that was kept locked and barred.

Belle opened it, and the bookmark floated in, landing on the desk.

No, landing on a paperweight on the desk.

Belle picked it up. It was about five inches of frosted glass, shaped like an egg, a bit thinner and more tapered towards the top with a flat bottom to let it stand.

 _An egg,_ Belle thought, holding it up to the light and examining it.  _Dwarves hatch from eggs that grow from stones in the earth._ She'd never heard for certain where fairies came from. Some stories said they burst into life with a child's first laugh. Some said, like Thumbelina—the more usual version of Thumbelina in this world—they were born from certain flowers. Rumple might have known, but she'd never asked him. He didn't like to discuss fairies.

As Belle turned it, she could see a figure inside, sparkling in clear, leaded glass. It was the figure of a woman, curled up in fetal position, eyes closed in sleep. It was a perfect image of Sister Astrid.

Will was the first one to break the silence. "So, you said you needed blood to work the other spell, right? To draw out the other fairies to have them free Astrid?” He looked at the shimmering, bloodless glass. “Am I the only one seeing a problem?"

 


	11. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle explains why she has to help Storybrooke. Will gets an offer he should have refused.

Belle's hands shook as she put down the paperweight

 _There is no reason to cry,_ she told herself.  _There is no reason to cry._ She repeated it like a mantra. There wasn't. This was a step forward. They'd found Astrid. Surely— _surely,_ there had to be some way to get her out of there.

And that meant getting the fairies out of the hat. And  _that_  meant finishing everything and leaving, looking for Rumplestiltskin.

Belle remembered the story of Princess Abigail's first betrothed, Frederick, and how he had been turned into a statue of gold, including his armor and helm. Perhaps Abigail had true love for him, perhaps not, but a kiss has no power over someone it can't touch.

Astrid was inside the egg. Assuming what Leroy felt for her was true love—and there were many kinds of love, just because losing her had changed him (literally) into a different person, Grumpy instead of Dreamy, didn't mean it was  _true_ —it didn’t mean he could free her from this spell.

Break the glass? Melt it? Astrid was glass and she was inside. Belle put down the paperweight.

It was too much. Every time Belle thought she'd gotten closer to finding an answer, she only found herself that much further away. Regina thought the world conspired to give villains unhappy endings. Maybe so. Maybe Belle had joined the other side without realizing it (she'd judged a man without hearing his defense, giving him the cruelest punishment it was in her power to give. Because he'd hurt her. Because she was angry. Because he loved her and had given her the power to hurt him the way no one else could. It didn't matter if it was just or right or what the town needed to be safe, it was  _wrong_ ).

Fate dangled solutions in front of her only to pull them away at the last moment. Like Rumplestiltskin, fighting for three hundred years to find his son.

 _He found him,_ she reminded herself.  _He never gave up and be found Bae._

_And lost him._

She didn't know if her story would have a better ending.

X

Belle put down the paperweight and began to cry. Will, watching her, wasn't certain what to do. She hadn't gone deathly pale or looked like it was the end of the world or anything dramatic like that. She'd just stood there, the light draining out of her. The paperweight was on the desk, and she stared at it like it should have all the answers but was giving her the silent treatment instead. So, she didn't know what to do except stand there, ramrod straight.

He had the wild thought that he should pretend not to notice. Belle had the stiff, still look of someone trying not to show what she felt—and doing a pretty bang-up job of it, stiff as bloke turned to marble (as he should know), if you didn't count the tears streaming down her face.

She stood facing the desk. He reached out and put a hand uncertainly on her shoulder. He thought about patting her, his hand going up like and down like a clockwork lever on one of Geppetto's toys, and saying something like, 'There, there.' It seemed even stupider and more useless than what he was doing.

"Belle," he said and tried to think of something else. 'There, there,' was all that came to mind. "Bloody hell," he said, giving up. "Just tell me what's the matter."

Belle shook her head, not like she was arguing, more like she didn't know what was wrong either. "I keep trying," she whispered. "And it keeps getting harder. Every time I get close to being done, it gets worse. I can't keep doing this. I  _can't."_

He stood there for another awkward moment, while he could see she was dying inside. If she were Ana—no, bad idea. Don't go there. She was Mrs. Gold. No, thinking of her that way was even worse. Think of her as a little sister. Not a good memory, but one he could work with. Uncertainly, he turned her around, then put his arms around her in a hug he wasn't sure he should be giving. At least she didn't pull away—or hit him with the paperweight.

Will wished this was over, too. He wished he was home and all the trouble that had sent him away was long forgotten. He wished—he wished he was holding someone he didn't have to think of as a little sister. Let everything be back the way it should be. Was that so much to ask?

Well, yeah, seemed like it was. For him and Belle both. He felt angry. For her. For him. For everything.

"So, why does it matter to you?" Will said. "Why bother? You want to pack your bags and head for the hills, then do it. Bloody hell, what's this place done for you? You get attacked on the street and you figure it's too much trouble to tell the sheriff. Why stay? What do you owe these people?"

But, Belle shook her head again. "It's not that simple. I have to do it because I'm the only one who can." Her breath caught, like a wound. "Or—or I'm the only one who stands a chance. That's why. You told me about your wife, Ana. You said it was hard. But, haven't there been times when—when it's worth it  _because_ it's hard?"

Will closed his eyes, his arms tightened around Belle. "That's my wife," he said. "We—we don't always get on." Whoa, a complete, whole truth. He'd better be careful, or who knew what come out? "But, if I got attacked in the street, she'd care. If my life was falling apart, she'd come up with something better than saying it's about time I wised up. Have any of these jokers done that for you?" Granny, maybe, he thought. She'd been worried about Belle. But, it wasn't his job to help Belle make an argument.

Belle broke away from him. "You know how you'd act if it was Ana," she said. "But, everyone is somebody's Ana. Everyone matters to somebody. Or they should. If I were doing this for her, you wouldn't tell me to stop, would you? Even if she didn't understand why I was doing it. Even if she didn't understand why it was hard for me. That's why I have to keep trying. Besides," she picked up the paperweight. "Astrid was always kind. Even to Rumple." Belle smiled wistfully. "She sent us a card she made herself when we got married. She sent us another card before that when—when Rumple's son, Bae, died. To both of us. Even though Rumple was Zelena's prisoner. Even though we didn't know if—if Rumple would ever see it. She wouldn't give up on anyone. I can't give up on her."

"Fine," he sighed. "Pack up the paperweight. And the bookmark. I guess she'll want that back. Let's go talk to the professor. Maybe she's found a linguist for us."

X

The night before last, Will Scarlet had gone to bed drunk, thinking of Ana and how he had to find a way back to her. Well,  _not_ 'gone to bed.' He'd been pretty sure he meant to go to bed, and he'd made it home to his apartment. No waking up in the library this time. That was good.

Waking up and finding the Dark One looming over him? Not so good.

"Now, now, dearie," Rumplestiltskin said. "Is that any way to treat the man who is about to make all your dreams come true? Oh, yes. I know exactly what it is you want and—in return for one, very small thing—I'm prepared to give it to you." He smiled coldly. "For your sake, I suggest you agree."

"What small thing?" No. Bad question. It's what every kid's mother told them back home. Devils and demons and Dark Ones, don't talk to them, don't make deals. Just say your prayers and run.

He wasn't sure if that advice worked or not, never having tested it. In fact, he'd pretty much chatted up every devil or demon that came his way. Take Cora, for instance. He'd stood around and poured out his heart to her even before she took it. And—despite every warning every mother ever gave—he'd made a deal with her.

Mum had been right about thing. He'd regretted it. Mostly regretted it. Sort of. Most of the time.

Except, the hurting had stopped. Except he'd been able to get up in the morning without wanting to tear his heart out to make it stop hurting.

Serving an evil queen hadn't been great—in fact, it had been a lot worse than he expected—but, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he'd been able to live with himself.

Yeah, heart torn out and enslaved by the evil queen. When that helps you live with yourself, something is seriously wrong with your life. Making a deal with the Dark One had to be worse. He should listen to Mum. He should look for an exit. He should just say no and live with the consequences (even if that meant  _not_  living with the consequences).

He looked up at Gold. "What do you want?"

"Nothing you can't manage. You can keep your heart. I just want want a small favor. And your heart's blood. A drop or three. Nothing you can't spare." Gold smiled at him, deadly as a serpent. "Have we got a deal?"

 


	12. Tending Roses, Growing Thorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maleficent gets a mask and goes to visit her step-daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaunice, the Yellow Fairy's name, is from an Old French world for yellow. It is also associated with jealousy, which seemed to fit her, and with jaundice.
> 
> I should mention Maleficent's relationship with Aurora is more complex than it is in the show. Not better or worse, necessarily. Just more complex.

Two nights before, Maleficent watched as Rumplestiltskin—or Gold, as he was known in this world—created her mask. There was paper, of course. Paper that had yellowed and aged under the Dark One's touch. The ink on the many pieces—some of them had been cut from books, all had been written over in the Dark One's fine hand in languages even she didn't know (assuming they were languages)—had faded as well. The strange markings looked like a fine web of wrinkles against the golden sheets.

"It's not a young mask," he told her, by way of explanation. He folded the sheets together deftly, adding other bits and pieces as he went. A scrap of oak leaf, pale as autumn sun, joined the fiery red of maple. Streaks of earth lined the eyes. Rumplestiltskin—Gold—inspected his work and nodded, satisfied. "It needs to remind you of what it is," he said. Pointing to the marks around the eyes, he added, "And you need to remember how the mask sees the world."

That was the heart of this spell, the advantage it had over simple transformation. It didn't  _trap_  the wearer. Rumplestiltskin, Maleficent thought, would turn to ashes anything that tried to do  _that_  to him. But, it tugged and reminded. It resisted—enough for the wearer to feel but not enough to stop you if you pushed against it—all the small choices that didn't fit the disguise.

Really, it was like a pair of stiletto heels and a ball gown. Those didn't keep you from running laps, turning cartwheels, or doing anything else you shouldn't at a ball (not that Maleficent hadn't loved some of the wild flights of fancy in the library's romance section, but those were written by people who had no idea how difficult it was to get in and out of a hooped skirt). They just made it very uncomfortable it you tried and might trip you up if you pushed it.

Although maybe she shouldn't use that comparison around Rumplestiltskin. He had his own mask to make, after all. Then again, she remembered some of his clothes from the Enchanted Forest. He knew all about tightly fitted leather and heels, not that  _he'd_  ever had any trouble prancing about like a madman in them, an advantage imps had over fallen fairies.

He handed Maleficent the finished mask and she put it on. She felt it against her skin, dry and stiff, the way the face of the woman she'd become should be. Rumplestiltskin smiled at his handiwork and produced a mirror. Maleficent looked back at a tall, lean ancient with a leathery face that must have spent decades being aged by long hikes through fair weather and foul—and who could still leave men half her age in the dust as she stomped on. Tough as old boots, Maleficent thought.

Looking through it, she saw the world in terms of leaves and roots, fruits and flowers. She could imagine walking over the ground thinking of whether soil was rich or poor, dry or moist. She thought of whether it was too cold for the earthworms to be awake and crawling through it. Could the roots breathe or were they being choked in rocks and clay?

And the secrets those plants held, those mattered to her as well. She thought how nightshade could stop a heart or save it, how chamomile could settle a stomach and St. John's Wart could ward off the more interfering varieties of fairy.

All things she already knew. Plants and living things were part and parcel of a fairy's work. But, they were pushed to the forefront of her mind, and the paper seemed to have words mixed in as well. She thought of  _vascular plants_ and the peculiar reproductive ways of ferns in their  _haploid_  and _diploid_  forms. . . .

Gold—it was easier, wearing the mask, to think of him as Gold—looked smug. "I cut a few corners from some very learned texts," he said. "Sold by the word, judging by their weight. The scholars here write more and say less than anyone I know. It ought to be enough to get you by. Just don't get too caught up in your own brilliance. It gives you the way a botanist speaks in this world and the  _way_ they think, but it will give you very little that you don't already know."

"I've heard scholars argue at the library," Maleficent said. "A few tirades about university politics and I should be convincing enough. What about you?"

His grin turned wolfish. "Don't worry about me. Now, do you remember your name?"

"Professor Longneaux—isn't the name a bit obvious?"

"Not to most of the people here."

 _Most. Not all._ The Dark One was never careless with words, but she didn't have any choice but to accept the name he'd given her. Since her most famous act was to curse a certain princess the day she was named, she was sure this was his idea of a private joke. But, he wouldn't take a risk for a joke. Or not just a joke. Not that it would help to ask what game he was playing. "Why Artemisia?" she asked instead.

"The obvious reason is that Artemis is the lady of woods and wild places, mistress of the moon and night, the great huntress. Not quite mistress of all botany or of all evil and a dragon, but close enough. The less obvious reason . . . see if the mask helps you think of it."

Artemisia, it was an herb, another name for tarragon. Any fairy—and a good many mortals—could have told him that. But, it wasn't the only name it was known by. "It’s another name for dragonwort in this world, _a _rtemisia dracunculus.__ That's not funny."

"No, but it is fitting. And masks should fit. It helps them stay on."

"What about  _you?_ "

"I intend to be very careful and not to be seen by the wrong eyes—or not when there's anything to see. Now, move along. The sooner you get to the pawn shop, the sooner we can convince Belle to start looking for your daughter. Whatever Blue did to her, I think being woken up by Belle might be a bit less frightening to a fairy than being woken up by Maleficent, don't you?"

Maleficent shrugged. "Perhaps I'll just show my daughter this face you've made me. She won't recognize it as a dragon." She ran a hand over her it. Strange, she could feel the skin, dry and wrinkled, but she also felt the thin, stiff folds of paper. "Perhaps I should test it first. I think I know who it might be amusing to chat with."

“Fine. Test it. _After_ you talk to Belle.”

X

It was still too cold to plant, Aurora thought. The days weren't too bad, but the soil could freeze up at night. Aurora wouldn't be surprised if they had snow again before spring came. Or that's what she thought from the almanacs she'd read and what locals (people who had been here for the first curse) told her about the weather. Still, that didn't mean she couldn't start to break up the ground for her vegetable garden while her son, Philip, napped in his baby swing. It had been a gift to Aurora from Ella, a metal frame with a crank on the side that could be wound up to swing a sleeping child—or one you hoped would be sleeping.

"Trust me," Ella had said. "Some days, that swing will save your sanity."

Aurora, who had been under a sleeping spell for twenty-eight years to wake into a world devastated by the Evil Queen's curse and ravaged by monsters before angering another witch and being transformed into a monster herself, wasn't sure how much sanity she had left. But, she appreciated the gesture—and it did give little Philip a place to nap where she could keep an eye on him while working on her vegetable garden.

"Excuse me?"

Aurora looked up and saw a tall, thin woman standing at the edge of the yard. She had gray hair done up in a bun and deeply wrinkled skin. She looked about eighty or so. Aurora didn't know her, but their home was near the walking path that led to the Toll Bridge. She was used to people stopping to say hello or ask directions on their daily hikes. The woman certainly looked like a walker, Aurora thought. She wore faded, stained jeans and a tweed jacket that might be as old as she was. Her mud-splattered boots might be even older.

"Yes?' Aurora said, smiling pleasantly. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Professor Longneaux," the woman said. "A botanist. Or I am in this world. I was an herbalist back home. I was hoping you could help me. Are you Princess Aurora?"

"Please, just call me Aurora," Aurora wasn't sure how she felt about the customs of this land, but even Snow White and her husband avoided titles. Besides, this woman wasn't one of her subjects. "What can I do for you?"

"I've been cataloguing magical plants in the area," the woman said. She looked at the Aurora's vegetable plot. "Oh, are you planting a garden?"

"Just breaking up the ground," Aurora said. "Everyone tells me it's too early for planting."

"True enough," the professor said. "I expect we'll have at least one more frost before spring takes up permanent residence. What are you planting?"

"I haven't decided," Aurora said. "Turnips grow anywhere, and I was thinking of carrots."

"Hmm, carrots take a long time. Had you thought about tomatoes? They didn't grow back in your part of the Enchanted Forest, did they?"

"Tomatoes,” Aurora said doubtfully. “They look like deadly nightshade, don't they? Are they poisonous?"

"Oh, they're perfectly safe and quite nutritious. The garden variety is quite easy to tell from nightshade, though the wild ones can be a bit trickier. . . ."

The professor knew a great deal about gardening and seemed pleased to answer any of Aurora’s questions.  They chatted about vegetables and wild flowers and the growing season in Maine. The professor knew odd stories about the land hereabouts, things that hadn't been in the almanac.

"New England's always had poor soil," she said told Aurora. She gave a little laugh. "Believe me, I had to study up on the dirt in this town the hard way.  There were times I felt I was buried under it.  I’m amazed anyone ever farmed here. Glaciers dragged off most of the topsoil during the last ice age, along with the earthworms."

"Ice age? What's that?"

"Something a little like the spell the Ice Queen had up around the town, except they happen naturally. Don't let it worry you," Professor Longneaux said. "They come on gradually, over thousands of years. Right now, this world's in a warming trend, which is good for the growing season this far north. Just make sure you use plenty of fertilizer."

Aurora was about to ask when the professor thought would be a good time to plant, when Philip woke up, wanting to be fed.  _He_ wasn't going to wait for a growing season for his meal.

X

Maleficent had watched the little princess working away at her vegetable patch. She remembered Stefan breaking the ground for her kitchen garden back at their cottage. She'd been more careful about using magic in those days. Her fairy dust was gone, and she'd been uncertain about using other, more human magics. Of course, back then, she'd thought she should be careful about attracting Blue's notice—or her outrage. Much good it had done her.

Clearing a piece of earth by hand had seemed a small enough price to be left in peace, but was it really? Was that when Stefan began to resent all he had given up? He was a prince and he was doing labor even a peasant might have resented. After all, most peasants had fields that had been cleared for generations. They didn't have to do battle with a forest just to win the right to a few turnips.

He had to have resented it, didn't he? Resent the price he was paying and the wife he paid it for. Surely, if he hadn't, the potion Jaunice, the Yellow Fairy, gave him wouldn't have been able to tear him away from her. Surely, their love had been stronger than that.  Or, it had at the beginning when everything seemed so right. It had to have been dying all along, and she just hadn't been able to see it.

Hadn't it?

He'd had the same determined look on his face back then she saw on his daughter now, attacking the earth as though he thought it might fight back, probably with a sword. At least, Aurora seemed to have some idea what she was doing. She might be expecting the ground to rise up against her but she seemed to understand the difference between a hoe and a broadsword.

It occurred to Maleficent that Aurora didn't need this garden, not the way they Maleficent and Stefan had. If she was doing this, it was because she wanted to.

Did that mean she was like her father? Or not?

Maleficent studied her. Aurora owed her hair to her mother, along with the shape of her face. Her eyes were blue, not her father's brown or her mother's hazel. Like Maleficent's.

Professor Longneaux, of course, knew all about a man named Mendel and the experiments he had done showing how peas inherited different traits. She knew scraps of how the same rules applied to people. A brown-eyed man and a hazel-eyed woman could have a blue eyed child. It was a simple matter of recessives versus dominants, a one-in-four chance if they had the right genes.

The fairy and the sorceress knew other rules. Memories, even ones buried with magic, could show in the form of a child. So could feelings.

It had to be the recessives.

Maleficent thought of her own daughter, Aurora's elder sister. She didn't even know what color Astrid's eyes were. They'd still been the milky blue of a newborn's when the fairies—when  _Jaunice_ —stole her.

She hoped it hurt when Rumplestiltskin killed that witch.

Maleficent had meant to test her mask—Belle hadn’t seen through it but, if anyone could see the dragon lurking behind the professor, it would surely be Stefan's daughter—till she saw Aurora digging away and realized what a stupid risk she was taking. This could accomplish nothing. Rumplestiltskin knew his craft. She should trust to that and keep going.

Instead, she had called out to Aurora and began a conversation with her. Well, at least she proved the mask worked. Professor Longneaux could talk quite pleasantly about the dangers of frost and the poor soil while watching the princess, looking for familiar expressions, listening for one of Stefan's turns of phrase. Would Astrid, who had never known either of her parents, speak like this? Would she wipe away the sweat from her forehead as she tilted her head, listening to the person she talked to, the same way her father had? Would people comment on the resemblance between the fairy and the human, wondering at its cause?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the little prince waking up. Aurora went over and got him out of his swing. He fussed and cried while Aurora tried to calm him. "Can you get his bottle?" Aurora said. "It's in the side pocket of the diaper bag."

Maleficent got it out and, without Aurora noticing, cast a small spell to warm it. "Formula?" she asked.

Aurora looked embarrassed. Was she afraid Maleficent was judging her?  _Was_ she judging her? Many royals had wet nurses. Stefan certainly had. Was this so very different? "I'm afraid so," Aurora said, taking the bottle as Maleficent handed it to her. "The doctor was worried about me nursing. He said formula would be safer."

Maleficent's ears pricked. She looked Aurora over with her magical senses, her real eyes glittering for a moment behind the mask, looking for signs or illness or spells. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"I was anemic after Philip was born. Doc said I'd been eating poorly when—when I was under that spell."  _That spell_. She meant when Zelena had transformed her. And enslaved her. Because she'd tried to warn Snow White what the witch was up to.

It was cowardly—or selfish, the way Stefan may have given in to selfishness when he forgot her—not to give that warning sooner. But, it had been brave to finally do it even when Aurora couldn't know how it would turn out for herself and her child. Many of the monsters Zelena had made had died attacking townsfolk.

Maleficent thought of Stefan, battling a garden patch as if it were something that could be slain. He would have been brave and foolish like that.

"Doc has me on some supplements," Aurora was saying. "But, he said it wasn't a good idea to nurse when I'd been malnourished. He wanted make sure Philip was getting enough nutrition, too."

Maleficent wondered how Zelena would have done against a dragon. Transformations didn't normally work on her. If Maleficent had been alive when Regina burned the curse that created this town, if Aurora had told  _her_  about Zelena before that hag got ahold of the Dark One's dagger, would things have been different?

Not that Stefan's daughter had any reason to confide in her. Not that she had any reason to expect Maleficent to protect her from an enemy or avenge her if she fell. Maleficent supposed she had a right to feel that way.

Although, if Zelena had killed Aurora, Maleficent was sure she could have come up with some reason to kill the witch. It was bad form to let other people kill your enemies before you'd gotten around to it.

And, if Regina hadn't liked it, too bad. She should have taken care of her sister when she had the chance.

Maleficent looked at the little baby, putting dreams of vengeance out of her head. He was Philip, named for his father. Not Stefan. Which meant nothing. Maybe Aurora was already planning on naming her next child Stefan. Or Stefanie. Maleficent tried to imagine a princess named Stefanie but all she could picture was a child of this world, earbuds firmly planted and hair bleached a shade of blond anyone over eighteen would find appalling (was that her or the professor talking?). Not a child who would ever look for unicorns or watch the fireflies come to life over a meadow of flowers.

Not a child who would be transformed into a monster to fight for a witch. Not a child who would be trapped in a spell to sleep for a hundred years.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad name.

She thought all these things while looking at Aurora's baby. The princess noticed. "Would you like to hold him?" she asked.

Hold him. It had been years since Maleficent had held a baby. More years than Aurora had been alive. No. "Of course."

He was small and fit into her arms just the way Astrid had. He nuzzled close to her for warmth, sucking contentedly on his bottle, eyes closed. She wondered if they had found their true color yet and what it might be.

"He likes you," Aurora said watching him cuddle closer to her deadliest enemy.

"Nonsense," Maleficent said. "He just likes the bottle." She had an image of herself, vanishing in a ball of flame, taking Philip with her. She'd rename him, she thought. Astrid, Aurora . . . what was a good name for a boy in this world? A strong name, a king's name. If she called him Aragorn, he'd be teased without mercy. Alexander? That might fit. . . .

She shook her head, pushing the fantasy aside. This wasn't her child. This wasn't even  _Stefan's_ child. "You'd best take him back." She handed the baby back to his mother. He stirred for a moment, discontented at the change, before settling down again in his mother's arms.

Yes, this was better. No matter what the stories about him, Rumplestiltskin would make no end of trouble if he heard she was stealing infants. And, honestly, what would she do with the brat? He was probably spoiled beyond bearing already. Let the princess deal with him.

"You held him so naturally," Aurora said. "I'm always afraid of breaking him. Ella and Snow tell me I just need practice. Do you have children?"

For Stefan's daughter to ask her that so innocently. . . . "I did. I lost her."

Aurora looked stricken and held her son a little tighter. "Oh. I'm sorry."

"It was long ago. Before you were born. Our old world . . . wasn't always a safe place for children."

"I. . . ." the princess floundered, looking for something useful to say. "You said you hoped I could help you with something? Is there anything I can do for you?"

"What?" Maleficent remembered the excuse she's made when they began talking. "Oh. Yes. I told you I've been looking for magical plants and herbs. I'm making a list for Mrs. Gold and supplying her with ingredients where I can. I hope you don't mind me asking, but the thorns. The ones that surrounded your castle. Did any of them come to this world with you? Have you seen them?"

Something uneasy flashed in the princess' eyes. Had she finally caught a glimpse of the dragon speaking to her? Or was it just the memory of the dragon's curse? "I—I think so," Aurora looked embarrassed. "It was one of the reasons Philip and I thought we should take this house. There's a great mass of thorn bushes right down the hill." Aurora pointed down to where Maleficent knew the streambed ran, even though she couldn't see it from here. "We thought there might be a connection between this place and—and our home." She looked at the broken earth she’d been hoeing. “I suppose that’s why I’m planting this. My father always said a place didn’t feel like home till it had a vegetable patch.”

“He did? I—I wouldn’t expect a king to say that.”

“He built a greenhouse at our palace.  He said working in it always calmed him for some reason.  But, I’d like it better if those thorns had been dead when we found them.” 

"I'm surprised you didn't tear them out."

"We thought about it," Aurora said. Yes, even if this place was a bit of home transformed, Sleeping Beauty would hardly care for those weeds, would she?  Even if her father had taught her to keep a garden.  _Especially_ if her father had taught her to keep a garden."But, we haven't gotten around to pulling them out. Besides, if they really are the ones from back home, they'll be hard to get rid of."

"There's always that. If you don't mind, I'll go have a look at them. I suppose it won't matter if I take a few samples?"

"Help yourself," Aurora said. "Just be careful where you plant them."

"Oh, I will." Not that it mattered. Those thorns took deep root where they were meant to but would wither and die anywhere else. Still, she stomped off down the hill, falling into the professor's firm, no nonsense strides.

Her phone buzzed. There was a text for her (sending letters by phone, this was as strange a world as Wonderland). It was brief and to the point.

_Get over here. Belle found what you've been looking for._


	13. Looking for Lost Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maleficent broods, Belle chats online with an Oxford professor, and Will explains what Darth Vader has to teach about being a good parent.

Maleficent pulled a musty book from one of the pawn shop shelves and began to look through it, trying to distract herself. There was a stack of more interesting things over by the counter, books of magic and history—records made by the Dark One himself—but she could guess the danger of being caught looking through those when the Dark One's wife finished chatting with the Dark One, even if she didn't know that's who the "Professor Peregrin" Maleficent had put her touch with was.

Will Scarlet, for his part, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing a computer game on his tablet. It played simple, chirpy music from time to time, during which Scarlet tended to look triumphant.

"Pac-Man," he told her. "One of the great games of the eighties. I had the champion score in Storybrooke for five years till the curse changed the games at the arcade."

"There's an arcade?" Maleficent asked. She didn't know the town as well as most of its residents, and the mask wasn't inclined to tell her about this. If it wasn't green or involved in growing something that was, Professor Longneaux had never heard of it.

"Nah, not that many video arcades around these days. Ours up and vanished one day and The Rabbit Hole got more chair space. But, it's one of those things you remember once the curse broke, that you know how to beat everyone in town at a classic video game. It's awful, forgetting something like that."

"Oh, yes, forgetting all the things that matter," Maleficent said dryly. She wasn't sure what to make of Scarlet. He acted like a fool, but he'd outwitted her once when he'd stolen that mirror to Wonderland. He'd outwitted Robin of Locksley, too. Not a terribly difficult task, that. But, Locksley usually had more sense than to take on even a normal dragon at someone else's behest.

She didn't know if Gold trusted him or not. The old sorcerer had set tiny, dragon form he’d given her down by the kitchen sink while he made whatever deal he had with Scarlet. But, she'd seen the smug, cruel light in his eyes when he was done. Whatever his bargain with the thief, he'd been looking forward to the results.

Once she’d gotten Gold’s message, Maleficent had hurried to "run into" Mrs. Gold and Scarlet as fast as she could. It had been so tempting to tear off her mask, to seize them with magic and demand to know where her daughter was and what had happened to her.

Instead, she had—barely—been able to stay calm and use the professor's crisp voice. She'd told Mrs. Gold she'd heard back from her colleague, Professor Ronald Reuel Peregrin, who was willing to discuss some of his initial impressions of the scans and notes she'd sent him.

They'd come back to the store, Maleficent had gone in back and started the online chat with Rumplestiltskin, then handed things over to his oblivious wife. Maleficent didn't even think of staying to eavesdrop, tempting as that normally would have been.  She had _some_ survival instincts.  Instead, she hurried to the front to talk to Will Scarlet, who was too busy playing with his tablet to pay attention to her—or he was enjoying driving her insane by _pretending_ to be too busy.

"My daughter," Maleficent said. "You found my daughter."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, not looking up. "You can't help her. She's under a fairy spell, not a curse."

Maleficent had managed—again, just barely—to throttle the urge to choke him. Or teach him everything she knew about curses by casting all of them on him. "I understand fairy magic," she grated. "Where. Is. She?"

"Belle's purse," Scarlet said, pointing to where the purse sitting on the counter. "We wrapped it up to keep it safe."

It? What did he mean, it? Maleficent tore through the bag and found a box. Inside, wrapped in old copies of The Daily Mirror, was a glass egg. In its heart, made of glittering crystal, was the clear form of a young woman.

No _,_ she thought.  _No._ Not even Reul Ghorm could do this. Not even  _Jaunice_.

Scarlet glanced up from his game. For a moment, he even seemed sympathetic and a little shame-faced at how casually he'd brought this up. "Belle thought the Blue Fairy did it to protect her. And Storybrooke. The Ice Queen's curse had people going crazy, attacking each other. This way, no one would go after Astrid. And she wouldn't go after them. Her spells, uh, aren't always that predictable."

"Astrid," Maleficent repeated. "That—that was the name I gave her." It meant beautiful goddess in a language where the word for goddess was very close to the word for star. A proper name, Maleficent had thought, for the child of the fairy once known as the Star of Fortune. "But, it's not the name Reul Ghorm gave her, is it?"

"No, they called her Nova. A new thing. Also means a star that goes and blows itself up." He turned back to his tablet, concentrating on whatever game he was playing.

Maleficent closed her eyes, remembering her beautiful, perfect child. Yes, that would have been how they saw her half-human daughter, a disaster waiting to happen, a new  _thing._ And she knew first-hand how well the centuries-old fairies dealt with anything new.

Not a curse, he'd said. But, what did Will Scarlet know? He'd thought that terrible mirror wasn't cursed, either, much good it had done him. Trembling, she lifted the cool glass to her lips and pressed them against it.

Nothing happened.

True love. Even Reul Ghorm didn't understand true love. Oh, there were clear signs in those who had it, what they would endure for each other, what they would do for each other—little as he'd spoken of the reasons for his exile, Maleficent knew Rumplestiltskin had been willing to do some terrible magic that would have freed him from his curse—and the danger it would always be to the woman he loved. But, even if they walked through the fires of hell, there were other lovers and dear kin who would had done just as much and never found that saving magic.

Was the horrible pain she felt when Astrid was torn away from her not love?

Or was it just not pure and true?

Emma Swan was the daughter of true love, of Prince Charming and Snow White. It ran in her very veins, so Rumplestiltskin said. Maleficent’s child was the daughter of a fairy who had turned her back on her duty for what she thought was love, only to have it turn to dust in her hands. Was there an opposite to true love? And was Astrid the child of it, cursed by it and her mother's blind choices?

Scarlet's tablet played its little, tinny tune, signaling the end of another round. He glanced up and noticed her holding the egg—and the lack of success she'd had with it. "It doesn't matter if it's true love or not," he told her, sounding . . . almost gentle,  _almost_ concerned. "You have to kiss  _her_ , not the shell she's trapped in. And don't try getting her out. Not with magic, not with something else. Not till we understand what Blue did to her. You might crack her apart with the rest of the egg." He cleared his throat and looked like he wasn't sure he should say what he was about to say. "Did you ever see the Star Wars movies?"

"The what?"

"Star Wars. Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Death Star—hey, is there a fairy named Death Star? There ought to be. That'd be cool. She'd have to wear black leather. That's a black leather sort of name."

"There was a Black Fairy. She's dead and she never wore leather. What does this have to do with Star Wars? Is that another one of your computer games?"

"Nah, you're thinking Space Invaders. Or maybe Asteroids? I remember playing that one. Except I probably didn't. It was big before the curse.

"Star Wars is a movie, a bunch of movies. And video games and action figures and lots of book tie ins—you were holed up in a library. Didn't you ever see them?"

"I never cared much for science fiction novels," Maleficent said. "The wrong people always seem to get blown up at the end of them."

Will Scarlet looked as though he were trying to decide if she were serious or not, then shrugged it off as unimportant. "Look, Star Wars is the ultimate guide for what not to do if you've got a heroic kid and you're maybe, you know, a not so heroic parent wanting a reunion. I've got the trilogy—the original one. The prequels were lame. Although, I can probably find them if I have to. And the Ewok movies, but that's just because I picked them up somewhere." 'Picked them up' in Will Scarlet's language meant 'stole' in everyone else's. "Trust me, you need to watch them before you try for tear-jerker reunions unless you want to wind up explaining why you lost your temper. Oh, sure, you’ll _say_ you just meant to give them a slap on the wrist, but that doesn’t explain lost limbs when the family get-together didn't go as planned, does it?"

His tablet made a sad, tinny sound. "Bloody hell, it was supposed to be on pause!" Will said, turning back to it. "Damn, I've only got one life left."

Maleficent was tempted to make it fewer and chance the wrath of Rumplestiltskin. What was it they said in this world?  _Kill the messenger._  Of course, they meant it as something you shouldn't do. At the moment, she thought it might be terribly satisfying. Instead, she went and looked at the pile of books Belle had been looking through.  Will Scarlet’s attention went back to his game.

 _It would go well_ , she thought.  _It_ had  _to go well._ When she saw her daughter again, when she explained, surely, she would understand. She wouldn't see the monster the fairies—especially Jaunice—would no doubt have painted Maleficent to be.

She glanced through the book she'd picked up. It was one from this world, a translation of an ancient history written thousands of years ago by a man named Herodotus. A short book, she supposed. But, back then, there had been considerably less history to record. It didn't mean the man hadn't made some keen observations. Maleficent, once Fortune's Star, opened on the phrase, "Call no man fortunate till his end be known."

Will, happily hitting the screen, crowed cheerfully that he was on the next level and had all his lives back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you may have noticed that the "Oxford professor" was named Ronald Reuel, the same as J. R. R. Tolkien's middle names, and good aliases for someone named Rumplestiltskin. Tolkien was possibly the most famous professor of languages to come out of Oxford and the only one I'd expect to be able to translate Elvish or other languages Rumple might have his notes in. 
> 
> "Peregrin" is the same name as Peregrin Took, one of Tolkien's Hobbits. It is also related to the word "peregrine," which comes from a word meaning wanderer or one from foreign parts. I sometimes connect "peregrine" with "perdition," which means to be lost or destroyed, especially spiritually lost or destroyed.
> 
> Let's just say that Rumple was feeling cast out when he picked it (sorry, it had to be said).


	14. Secrets and Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will realizes something about Belle.

Belle's head was pounding when she stepped out of the back room. The sunlight coming in through the windows felt like a cold knife going through her eyes and made her stomach churn. Will, sitting on the floor and cheerfully bent over his tablet, looked up at her. A weary part of her brain pushed through the exhaustion and pain to notice he was smiling as smugly as Henry when he'd set a new high score. She was too tired to ask. Anyway, she knew better. She'd had nightmares after Henry got her to play Five Nights at Freddy's. Then Will got a good look at her, and the smile vanished as he scrambled to his feet, looking worried and confused.

"Bad news?" he asked.

Belle tried to smile, ignoring her headache. "Good news," she said. "Better than I expected." She looked over at Professor Longneaux, who was looking through a worn book. "Your colleague, Professor Peregrin, has made progress already. He thinks he could have what we need in a week, maybe two."

Another week. Maybe two. And then to put together whatever solution the translation gave her. If there was one. If it was something she could do. Or could teach Regina or Emma or  _someone_ to do and if they did it right and if it didn't take magic ingredients she didn't have or couldn't make or had used up the day before she learned she needed it. . . .

 _I can't do this anymore,_  Belle thought. Her head hurt and she was so tired—and so  _tired_ of being tired.

"If it's good news, why are you so unhappy?" Will asked, still watching her anxiously.

"I'm just worn out. That's all," Belle said. It was true enough.

Professor Longneaux cleared her throat. "Do you have to wait for the translation? Mr. Scarlet, here, told me you thought you could use a fairy who'd been left behind. Can't you try that?"

Will had told Professor Longneaux about Astrid? The ache in Belle's head seemed to increase as she tried to puzzle out why. Who knew why Will Scarlet did anything?

She'd wondered that when she'd found him in her library, passed out and curled up around a page torn out of a children's book. She knew the answer now.

Maybe Will had a reason. Maybe it even made sense.

"She's transformed. The spell I was thinking of—" If she remembered correctly, if it did what she thought it did, if she could even make it work the way it was supposed to, "—it needs her in her human—fairy—form.  She would need to be changed back, and I don't know how."

"Fairy dust can undo curses," Professor Longneaux said but she didn't sound hopeful.

Belle had to agree with her. "If this were a curse, that might work. But, it isn't. It's a spell. The mother superior would have used fairy dust to cast it. I don't think we could use it to change her back, not without understanding more about the spell in the first place. We could try true love's kiss, I suppose, but I think the shell—did Will explain what happened to her?—the shell will block it."

"I suppose." There was listlessness in her tone Belle recognized, the way someone sounded when all the choices seemed hopeless but you had to keep on trying.

But, the listlessness vanished. The professor's eyes sharpened, fastening on Belle. "True love's kiss? Sister Astrid has someone else—someone who could give her _true love's kiss?_ "

"Leroy," Belle said, the answer startled out of her before she could stop and think whether or not she should tell the professor this.

"The Dwarf?" the professor asked, incredulous. "The  _drunk_ Dwarf?  _Grumpy?_ "

"He isn't a drunk anymore," Belle said. "Not since the curse broke. And . . . he was called Dreamy when he met Astrid. I knew him then. He only became Grumpy after he was convinced to send Astrid away. They told him Dwarves can't fall in love. And that Astrid would lose her powers if she went with him."

Grumpy had told her about it when she'd met him in Storybrooke. The Blue Fairy had told him Astrid could be a great fairy godmother.

If she'd really believed that, Belle thought, she wouldn't have frozen Astrid in glass.

"Reul Ghorm," the professor said, her voice thick with anger. "Oh, yes. She would tell him that." She swallowed back her rage. "Just let me know," she said. "If you find a way to help her. Even—even if it's one of those riddles, one of those things that seems impossible on the face of it. There's always a way around them. I know a bit about magic. I might be able to help. If you find something, anything, let me know."

It mattered to her, freeing Astrid. Belle had the feeling she'd sometimes had around Rumplestiltskin, that a word a statement—something that would have seemed simple and innocent from anyone else—echoed back through the dark, tangled roots of his long life.

_There was a son. I lost him._

When she had pressed him for more, he had only been able to say,  _I lost him. There's nothing more to tell, really._

Except that he'd been alone, with no one to love and no one to love him. Except that the sole purpose of his very long life had been to find the son he'd lost and tell him he was sorry.

And he had found his son. And told him he was sorry. And proven it, giving up everything to save Baelfire from death—only to be forced to watch as his son gave up his life to save his papa and everyone else he loved.

 _Like father, like son,_ Belle thought.

In a moment of fear, Rumplestiltskin had let go of Bae and had spent centuries trying to atone. In another moment of fear, he had sent her away and then been tricked into thinking he had destroyed her.

In a moment of anger and pain, Belle had thrown him away. She had been more merciless than he had when he cast her out. He had been furious, too, thinking she'd betrayed him. She'd seen the ruin he made of the treasures in his hall. He hadn't come near her till his fury was spent, till he was safe. He may not have let himself believe her when she told him it wasn't a lie, wasn't a trick, that she truly did love him, but he'd heard her out.

All the things she hadn't done for him.

Belle thought of her father telling that man, Smee, to take her away, to send her over the town line and destroy her mind and memory. Even then, he'd given her a chance to speak. Brief as it had been, he'd asked if she had committed the crime he accused her of, of loving the beast. He'd even listened to her answer. He'd punished her only when it wasn't the one he wanted to hear.

She remembered her terror in the cart, hurtling through the darkness, scrambling for the key that might free her in time, only to have it slip through her desperate hands. If Rumple hadn't dragged the cart back with magic, would she have died out there? Chained in the dark, slowly dying of thirst and hunger?

_Chains. Dark. Trapped._

Belle tried to calm her heart at the memory, tried to think of other things. But, there was a truth she couldn't escape. Her father had been a fairer judge than she was. He had given her the chance to speak in her defense, to explain.

He had been more merciful than she was. He seen the danger he was putting her in and had tried to protect her from it—imperfectly, inadequately. Belle still woke screaming some nights, feeling chains around her wrists, feeling death coming for her. But, her father had at least thought about what could go wrong and  _tried_  to shield her from it.

She'd left Rumplestiltskin to die on the road. She'd walked away without a backward glance.

Belle remembered the tears streaming down her face, the pain as if her heart was breaking. Oh, there'd been a reason she hadn't looked back—but the reason was that she cared more about her pain than his. It would have  _hurt_  too much to look at him. It would have  _hurt_ too much to see what she had done.

Coward. Coward and tyrant and all the things she had sworn never to be.

_I'm sorry._

Belle looked the professor in the eye. "If I find something, I'll let you know."

The professor nodded. "Thank you," she said. She sounded like a petitioner in Maurice's court, pleading for a life and having it spared. She said nothing more, just turned to the door and left.

"And don't forget to watch those movies," Will called after her. "Especially the second one. Trust me."

"Movies?" Belle said after the door closed behind the professor.

"Star Wars. Can you believe she's never seen Star Wars?"

X

Will was worried about Mrs. Gold. It was like she was wearing away from the inside. If this were a zombie movie, she'd be the bloke dying in front of everyone while nobody noticed—or not till she tried to eat their brains.

Not that he didn't think there were a few people who deserved to have their brains eaten. Except, the way they acted, he wasn't sure they had any.

_And you do? You’ve done what you needed. A rat dumb enough to escape a cat by jumping into the fox's mouth would know enough to walk away from this one._

Yeah, if there are any zombies, herd them over to Storybrooke. The town'll be safe. No brains here.

"There's some soup in back," he said. "Want me to fix you some? And maybe you should get some rest. Take a nap or something."

Mrs. Gold shook her head. "It's the middle of the day."

"So? I know people who won't be out of bed for at least another four hours. Life doesn't start till the sun goes down—and I'm talking party people, not vampires, before you ask."

"Are there any vampires in Storybrooke?"

"Sal Smith. He used to run the hospital's blood bank. Had to quit once the curse broke. Too tempting and he can't work day shifts anymore. He sticks to animal blood. Cows, mostly. Tom Clark carries it in the back of the frozen section, if you know where to look."

He looked at Mrs. Gold, hopeful as a puppy that had chased down a ball, brought it back to his master—mistress?—no,  _don't_ go there, his  _master—_ and was waiting for it to be thrown again.

But, Mrs. Gold didn't ask questions or decide he was joking or even just roll her eyes at him. Instead, she said, "Oh," and rubbed her temples.

"Let me get you that soup," he said. "And some Tylenol. You look like you could use it."

Mrs. Gold grimaced. "No, no Tylenol." She hesitated, maybe not even noticing the way she was rubbing her temples. "Soup," she said. "That might help. But, I can take care of it."

"Yeah, but you don't have to. And you should take something for that headache. You got some aspirin back here? If it's a migraine, you mix that with caffeine, and that'll kill it every time. Or that's what this one girl I used to date said. Now, if it was a hangover, I know some really good cures for that—"

" _No,_ " Mrs. Gold said. "No aspirin and no Tylenol. I'm fine. Really."

"You are not. You—" Will stopped.

 _Brain like a turtle_ , his father had once said.  _Slow and thick. But, give it enough time, and you get there in the end—just long after everyone else has gone home._

And too late to do any good, he thought, the blood draining from his face. Much too late.

He thought of Belle picking at her food, looking sick at the smell of eggs and ham. No aspirin. No Tylenol.

"You're pregnant." The words weren't even a whisper, as if the air itself were listening, ready to carry away secrets to the wrong people.

He thought of Leroy, Mrs. Gold's friend and in love with the daughter of the Mistress of All Evil (seriously, how mad had Maleficent been at her ex when she came up with that one?  Did she look at Stefan and say, “Oh, and there’s All-Evil.  How nice to see you”?). Leroy had to tell Mrs. Gold every time he saw her how much better off she was without Gold. The sheriff figured Snottingham was a step up.

And people who weren't as friendly as the drunk Dwarf or the sheriff shoved her and spat at her and made demands and threats with no fear of anyone standing up for Rumplestiltskin's wife.

_And after her stay here, her . . . association with you, no one would want her, of course._

Not words he'd spoken, not words he should know, not words he should ever— _ever_ —admit to having heard.

But, if that was how they treated the Dark One's wife after she had (to hear them go on about what Rumplestiltskin had been up to) saved them all, he could only imagine what they would do to Rumplestiltskin's child, blood of his tainted blood and flesh of his poisoned flesh.

Except Mrs. Gold was shaking her head in denial. "I'm not—I don't—I couldn't even keep track of the months when I was in Regina's prison." It showed how shell-shocked he was that it took him a minute to understand what she was telling him. Not that it meant anything. Put  _anyone_ —male or female—in dark hole with rancid food and never enough of it, and all the body's rhythms went offline. It was just a lot more obvious what wasn't happening if the person was a woman. That meant squat for what was happening to her now. But, Mrs. Gold was already going on before he could get his thoughts organized enough to argue. "And I've always gotten sick to my stomach when I'm worried, when there's so much to do. During the Ogre War, I would get busy in the infirmary and never eat, not for an entire day—sometimes more when there were a lot of wounded."

"Not having an appetite while you're spending a day staring at gaping wounds is one thing. This is another. Did you—Have you at least taken a test? Or—or something?"

Belle snorted. "You mean have I walked into Clark's store and bought one? I might as well take out an ad on the front page of  _The Daily Mirror._ "

Yeah, the one thing Storybrooke had in common with any normal small town was the way gossip traveled. It made the  _Millennium Falcon's_ hyperdrive look like a stupid, thickheaded turtle (which he was, he really was). "I'll get you one," he said. "Tom won't know it's for you."

She gave a small laugh. "Really? And who will he think it's for?"

"I could tell Tom I'm picking up a few things for Ruby—Joking! Just Joking! Not serious!" he added quickly, hands up defensively as she glared at him. "It won't be a problem. I promise. Tom won't even know I got it. I'll be in and out."

"You're going to  _steal_ from him?"

Well, that had been the idea. "No, I'll see he gets paid for it." Looks like he was going to be dropping more money on Clark's desk. Or something. For a moment, he thought about sending in Maleficent. See what Tom looked like when an eighty year old lady bought a pregnancy test.

Hey, this was Storybrooke. Maybe he'd figure she needed it. Weirder things had happened. But, even he couldn't think of much  _stupider_ things that could happen than taking a secret like that, gift-wrapping it, and handing it to the Lady Dragon with a bow on top.

Which meant he'd have to do this another way. Only, today he'd do it while the store was open. He'd just have to work out the details. "Trust me. He won't know I'm the one who got it.  _No one_ will know. But—but let me get you some soup first. And crackers. Crackers are good. Eat a lot. Get those calories. And get some rest. And, then, I'll get you the test from Tom's store. We'll find out what's going on."

Find out the truth. Then figure out what to do once he knew it.

 


	15. Truths or Dares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle gets the results of the test.

Mrs. Gold came out of the bathroom, her eyes hollowed out and empty.

Will had thought she couldn't get any worse than she'd been in the blue mosquito's office. But, this was Belle broken. This was a Mrs. Gold beaten back to a place he didn't think she could ever get herself out of.

He'd thought he was helping her last night. Bloody hell, he'd thought he was  _saving_ her when slugged Keith and put him out with the rest of the trash. But, she'd been dying by inches ever since he'd walked through her door.

He was the one who'd done this. He was the one who'd said all the bloody stupid words Mrs. Gold had been trying to not even think, asking if she was pregnant. Hell, he was even the one pulled the bloody clever slight of hand so Tom didn't even know he was ringing up the bloody stupid test so she could find out the bloody stupid answer.  Follow the Lady had never been meant to be played at a checkout counter.

Mrs. Gold dropped the stick on the coffee table in her small living room. Positive.

"I can't," she whispered. Her dead, empty eyes met Will's for a moment but they weren't seeing him. "I can't do this."

He didn't understand. Can't what? Can't have the baby? She—she was going to get rid of it?

He tried to say something, to argue, to beg. . . . But, the words choked him. This world wasn't their world. Girls meeting doctors on the sly to get rid of hidden burdens didn't risk bleeding to death or infections that rotted them from the inside out. Potions Tom Clark probably stocked could uproot a new life and send it away like a bad dream, but they didn't carry hidden prices in poison or magic.

 _But_ , he wanted to scream,  _girls in this world have choices. If they can't find a magic potion or a healer with a quick knife, girls here don't wander out onto the weak place in the ice rather than tell their big brother what they've done._

Yeah, she'd believe that. Her old man had tried to do the next thing to killing her just because she'd been  _in love_  with the Dark One. People stopped by every day to remind her how lucky she was her husband was gone. Bloody hell, the true love child sheriff figured  _Keith_  for an improvement over the last bloke Mrs. Gold had fallen for. What would any of them do if they knew the Dark One's spawn was growing inside her belly?

Will had seen the dark cells under the hospital. He knew Mrs. Gold had been locked up there for twenty-eight years. If she decided to keep this baby, how long before they decided to lock her up there again? Bloody hell, how much more proof would the pack of self-anointed heroes need she was mental?

And, once they decided that, someone else could sign off on getting the grub out of her. Not Frankenstein, he was still scared of the Dark One and too attached to his arm. But, Will had seen the Seven Dwarves fight. Dark Ones, dragons, they didn't care. Good ole, grandfatherly Doc would have no problem stomping on a baby monster till it was nothing but a wet smudge on the streets.

 _Ease up,_ he told himself.  _Breathe. Doc hasn't done anything._ Belle _hasn't done anything._

The memory of a child falling into darkness, fingers slipping through his. A crack in the ice, a crack in the world, what difference did it make? Something precious and beautiful was gone forever. There'd been an all too brief eternity when he had desperately believed he could still make it right—

—Till he had fought his way out of darkness to find all his struggles had only brought him a dead body on a cold hill with empty eyes that stared blindly at a gray sky, never seeing him.

The way Belle was staring now.

 _Don't do this,_ he screamed silently.  _Don't. We'll find another way. Don't. Please, Belle, just hang on a little longer._

He closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the uselessness of his words, like ashes.  _I know that's what you've been telling yourself for weeks. I know you feel like you don't have anything left to hang on with. I know it hurts so bad you can't believe it would hurt worse to just let go. I know I can't even tell you why I think you have something to hang on for._

_But, please, don't let go._

All that poured through his mind in the time it took Belle to crumble onto the couch, her knees curled to her chest in a small ball of pain. He didn't think she remembered he was there. "I can't do this," she repeated. Tears began spilled out of her blind eyes. In a voice of animal pain, her words like a ragged wound, she said, "I can't do this to him. I  _can't._ "

"Him?" Will said, not understanding.

Belle had begun to rock back and forth, like a child in agony. Will wasn't sure if she had even heard him. "He lost his son," she said. "After everything, he lost him. He saw him die and he couldn't stop it. It—it killed something in him. More than anything else Zelena did, it killed him. He'd lived in cages before. He—he shattered his leg to save his son before Bae was even born. And he lived with the pain. Because it saved Baelfire. He could endure anything if it saved his son.

"Except, it didn't save him. Bae died, and it destroyed him. And I didn't see it in time. I can't take his child from him. I  _can't."_

This was the real reason she hadn't gotten a test sooner, Will thought. Because, she couldn't let herself know. Because, as soon as she knew, she had to choose. She could stay in Storybrooke and keep fighting their thankless battles or she could leave and fight a battle that might be just as bleak and even more hopeless.

He could imagine what was running through her head. What happened if she tracked Gold down and he wanted nothing to do with her? What happened if she told him about the child and he didn't want anything to do with a monster grub of  _hers?_  Or if he did want it but wanted to make sure she had nothing to do with it? Gold was a bloody brilliant lawyer even before the curse broke, and the laws in this world gave an edge to fathers who'd been thrown out on the road and left to die.

Not that that was what she did.

But, it was what she thought she did. And being punished for it (oh, gods, what kind of idiot was he? Why didn't he see this sooner?) was what she thought she deserved.

When Hook stomped on her, when people spat at her, when sewer-muck like Snotty attacked her and the sheriff still thought going out with him was a good idea, she thought she deserved it.

Oh,  _bloody hell._

Will sat down next to her and, very carefully, reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder. "It's going to be all right," he said, hoping she heard, hoping his words meant something and weren't just animal grunts in the background.

He put a hand on her other shoulder and, as gently as if she would shatter in his hands with one wrong move (which she very well might), he turned her around to face him. "It's going to be  _all right,_ " he repeated.

"It can't be," she said, her voice soft and ragged. "It can never be right again."

 _Give her the truth,_ he thought.  _Or give her the right kind of lies._ "I thought that," he said. "For years." Truth. "I'd messed up everything. I had it all and I flushed it down the loo. Then, I dug it out of the septic tank, covered it with muck, ran it through a blender, stuck it down the garbage disposal, and threw a hand grenade in after. And, then I found a way to  _really_  mess things up." He took a deep breath. The truth, then. As much as he could bear. "The woman I loved was  _dead._ They tortured her, made her bleed and tore her mind apart.  And, when I realized how wrong I’d been, that I loved her and needed her, that's when they killed her." Lies. Truth. The only truth he'd known for what seemed like eternity. "She was dead. I  _knew_ she was dead. I'd have torn the world apart with my own two hands to save her, but there was nothing I could do—except make some even more colossal mistakes. I had to see the—the—" He swallowed back words he shouldn't say in front of Mrs. Gold. Or the baby. "—the worst piece of bloodthirsty filth to ever crawl out of a cesspit holding her and her thinking—thinking this was  _OK_ before I realized how badly I'd messed up.

"Except it changed. Not because I deserved it. Not because it was right. It changed because—because sometimes, after a lifetime of doing nothing but putting cesspits and tripwires in your way, the universe spins out something beautiful, something perfect. And it decides you're the lucky bloke it'll hand it over to on a platter. You never know why. No explanations. It just happens."

Belle looked up at him with watery eyes, but the tears had stopped falling. He wasn't fooled. There was a point where you were too worn out to cry. At least, she was listening to him. "You said she threw you out, your Anastasia."

"I said I had it coming, too. But, it's OK. Because. . . ." How was he supposed to say this so Belle could understand? Say it without saying all the things he'd couldn't— _mustn't—_ tell her? "Belle, I love my wife. More than I love breathing or hearing my heart beat in the morning. She could—could—" Break my legs and leave me on the road to die. No, bad way to put it, "—could throw me to another world where there's nothing to do but play Pac Man and beat up Snotty and get locked up by a pain-in-the-neck sheriff who hasn't got a clue about feeding prisoners. And, it's OK so long as I know she's all right."

"It's not all right," she whispered. "I hurt him, and it's not all right."

"It will be," he promised her, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. "I promise, it will be."

_It would be easy._

The words were like a snake hissing in his mind.

Will looked at Belle. She was tired and exhausted, with no strength left.

 _It would be easy,_ the voice hissed again.  _Take her, hold her,_ comfort  _her. She's too alone, she needs someone too much. She won't even notice as you seduce her. . . ._

Will turned on the voice.  _Shut. Up._

Images flooded his head, how he could do it, sleep with her.

 _Stop it,_ he told the dark shadow lurking inside him.  _Stop it, I won't do this to her._

It would start with innocent touches slowly becoming something more, an answering fire building inside her. The hunger—not for a lover or a roll in the hay, the hunger to be held, to be seen, to matter, that would do the rest.

She was broken. She was ground to powder, starving more for kindness, for a human touch that wasn't a blow more than her skeletal form was starved for food.

 _This is not kindness,_ he told himself. However this began, he knew how it would end. He knew how Belle would look at him when she came back to herself. Whatever brief gift a night together would give her, she would wake in the morning and see one more betrayal. And there would be nothing— _nothing_ —he could ever say, no truth he could ever give to make it better. He had to step away, to let her go.

 _But, I want her,_ a part of him said, as desperate and lonely as Belle must be. It was the cry of a lost, abandoned child.

 _No,_ he snarled back.  _I want my_ **wife**.  _I want the woman who looks at me and sees a man instead of the world's—no, the_ **worlds** ' _—biggest, most colossal excuse of a failure. I want—_ Memories of a terrible, dark time ran through him – _I want the woman who can see me caged in a cell and knowing a homicidal magic user may show up at any moment and murder her for being there, and she only wants to help me. Not this. This is a lie. This is me putting the last nail in the coffin of anything that can ever go right between us._

_But, I want her._

Gently, cursing himself for a fool, Will put his hands to Belle's shoulders and pushed her away.

"Belle. . . ." No, he shouldn't call her that. "Mrs. Gold. . . ." His brain began putting together long, convoluted stories, reasons for leaving, reasons why this (except she didn't know there was a  _this_ ) was a bad idea. He could lie to her, he could tell her bits and pieces of the truth. He could—he could—

No, there was no time for that. He couldn't stay here. The longer he stayed, the more chance the really stupid part of his brain would get back in the driver's seat and destroy whatever chance he had left of fixing everything he'd broken.

"I've—I've got to go," he said, getting up, pulling away from her. "I've got a plan—I can—I can—Just  _wait,_ all right? I can fix this." Oh, what a liar. What a  _coward._

At least, this coward knew when to run from a battlefield.

"Just don't do anything." Don't walk on the lake where the ice is thin. Don't jump into the dark cracks between the worlds. Don't cross over the town line where no one is waiting for you on the other side. He ran, getting out her door as fast as he could go.

Will Scarlet ran from of the library and down the street, dashing down an alleyway where no one could see him. It was already dark out. No one seemed to be about, Storybrooke's poor excuse for a nightlife was happening somewhere else.

His hands reached up to his face where his fingers—and no one else's—could feel the dry, thin edges of what he'd made. His true self had pushed against it, breaking against the words and images he had worked in with blood. He'd felt himself thinking of her as  _Belle_ , not Mrs. Gold, almost undoing all his work.

Why not? Take away the mask. Go back to her. Tell her everything. Beg  _her_  forgiveness.

He'd reached for the paper edge when he heard footsteps in the alley. Looking up, he saw the pirate outlined against the street light behind him, a few of his cronies hanging back.

"Will Scarlet," Jones said, trying to sound like an inquisitor pronouncing doom (he should know, he'd met a few). "I've been looking for you. You've been causing a lot of trouble lately. Tsk, tsk. You know, before last night, I would have said you'd learned your lesson and knew to stay out of my way. You need to go back to that."

The man Hook spoke to bit back a laugh.  _It's no use going back to yesterday,_ he wanted to say, quoting Alice. _Because I was a different person then_.

His name wasn't Will Bloody Scarlet. But, let the captain call him that. He didn't mind. It might make this more amusing in the end.

His hand fell away from the paper mask. He walked towards Jones, smiling. But, in the shadows, the captain couldn't see the too-sharp flash of his teeth.


	16. Fire and Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora has suspicions about the professor. Rumplestiltskin should have had suspicions about Keith.

Aurora saw Professor Longneaux disappear.

She hadn't been spying. It was just that the path she'd pointed out to her was a bit steep and difficult in spots. Despite her apparent energy and health, the professor was an old woman. After sending her down there, Aurora thought that maybe she should have pointed out some of the rougher patches and made sure she made it to the bottom all right. Besides, she'd enjoyed chatting with her.

Still carrying little Philip, Aurora set off down the path. She was just catching up with the professor and about to call out when the professor's cell phone went off. Aurora saw her pull it out and read the message. The professor looked like she'd been hit. She stared blankly for a moment and began to breathe rapidly, as if she were fighting panic. Aurora was about to ask her if she was all right when the professor vanished in a cloud of purple smoke.

Aurora stood frozen, uncertain who—or what—or  _who_  she had been speaking with.

Maleficent, she thought.

No. Maleficent was dead. Emma had killed her. She had told Aurora how she had killed her with her father's sword and how Maleficent's body had been consumed by her own fire, turning her to ash.

Philip had heard Hook boasting one night at the bar, telling everyone how Maleficent, bound by a spell of Regina's to serve her even after death, had risen up to fight him, a ghost of ash and fire, when he had been sent on a mission into the tunnels beneath the town.

He'd been vague about the mission. It was probably something bad—if he weren't making it up entirely. A man in a bar telling tall tales to get others to buy him a drink, Aurora thought. It wasn't like that had never happened before in the history of the world.

She _could_ ask Emma, she supposed. Aurora had avoided Emma since Zelena had cursed her, transforming her and Philip into flying beasts, forced to obey her every command. Since being freed, she'd been busy with little Philip, of course, and there were all the problems of learning to live in this new world. The dangers seemed far fewer. Ogres weren't trying to kill her, after all. But, there were so many little things to learn, like baby bottles and can openers. She was still glad for the way Ashley had taken her aside and explained disposable diapers and baby monitors.

But, Aurora had heard how Emma had killed some of the other people Zelena cursed.  Not that she’d had much choice. They'd flown in and attacked people, killing some, transforming others into creatures like themselves. Zelena had sent a small brigade to try and steal Henry, Emma's son. If someone had tried to do that to little Philip, Aurora wouldn't have cared if they were cursed or not, she'd have done whatever it took to protect her son.

But, it didn't change the sick feeling of horror she had. Emma had killed them _knowing_ what they were—despite knowing any one of them could have been Aurora or some other mother with child. Perhaps one was—perhaps several.

There hadn't been a choice. She _knew_ that. Hesitation would have handed Zelena victory and destroyed all of them. And it wouldn't have saved little Philip. Time had stopped for Aurora while she was under the curse. If she hadn't been changed back, her son would never have been born.

But . . . Emma still would have killed her, given the chance.

But, that wasn’t the only reason.  If it was, Aurora could have swallowed the sick feeling inside and spoken to her.  Maybe she’d find Emma was just as horrified as she was at what had almost happened, and they could put it all behind them.

The other reason—the reason Aurora backed off every time she thought of talking to Emma—was that, whenever she saw Emma, whether in town or tramping through the woods, she was with Hook.

 

Even when Aurora thought Emma was alone, he had a way of suddenly appearing, popping out of the shadows. Aurora felt waves of panic whenever she saw him, worse than when she thought of Zelena. Oh, Zelena had threatened them and given Aurora and Philip no reason to doubt she'd kill them (or kill little Philip before he ever saw the light of day). But, she hadn't torn out Aurora's heart. She hadn't forced her to smile as she betrayed her honor and her comrades, to tell lies as she walked with them to their deaths. Zelena hadn't cut the ropes holding back the bars over the pit the fairies had dug to trap Rumplestiltskin. The Wicked Witch hadn't left them to starve in the darkness (Aurora remembered watching the one torch burning in the wall, calculating how long till the light died. She remembered seeing the moisture trickling down the stone walls and wondering if there would be enough to keep thirst from killing the before they died of hunger).

That's what Hook had done. Aurora still remembered the feeling of him reaching  _inside_  her. As his hand closed around her heart, it felt as if it were closing around _her_ , as if she were trapped in the dark hollow of his hand. She was choking, unable to breathe.

Then he yanked his arm back; and she saw her heart, a great jewel, pulsing red, as it lay across his palm.

Aurora remembered the look on Emma's face as she told her Hook had freed her because he still had feelings for her. Aurora had smiled like a stupid, naïve, little girl who could actually believe Hook would feel that—as if Hook had been sweet and kind, and Emma had wronged  _him_.

Aurora remembered the small refuge and the survivors living there. She'd only spent a short time living among them, but they'd been kind to her. They comforted her over Philip's death, sharing her grief and telling stories of Philip’s life among them, the lives he'd saved along with the smaller kindnesses that made such a difference in that ruined land. She'd seen their courage and their strength.

She'd seen them dead, days later, slaughtered by Cora because they were no more use to her—and because their corpses made a good place to plant the sole "survivor." Hook had lived among them, too, claiming to befriend them just as he later claimed to befriend Emma and the rest of their small company.

Cora had put those lying words into Aurora's mouth, but Hook had been nearby. Aurora had  _felt_ his laughter as Cora whispered what she should say. When Aurora's heart was returned to her, she'd wanted to vomit, to spit out the memories of what she'd done. If she'd ever met Hook again, she'd meant to take her father's battleax to his lying mouth.

But, Queen Snow and Prince James had given him his life in return for helping to save their grandson. They wouldn't see the pirate harmed. For Henry's sake, even Rumplestiltskin had agreed to a truce. But, Emma went farther than that. It was as if Hook had never tried to kill them. It was as if she remembered what Aurora had said about sweet, kind, brokenhearted Hook and forgotten that every word of it had been a lie forced out of Aurora with black magic.

Maleficent and Regina were hardly the only witches in Storybrooke, Aurora told herself. There had to be others who could vanish in a puff of smoke. Even Emma, a woman who'd mocked the idea of Ogres till they were attacking her, was learning it. The professor had said she'd been an herbalist in the old world. That took at least a little understanding of spells, and some learned more than a little. That might be all this was.

She could still call the sheriff and tell her . . . what? Someone in Storybrooke had magic? An herb woman might also be a witch? And perhaps she could throw in that water was wet and the sun was bright at midday while she was at it.

What she was afraid of wasn't possible.

Unless Hook had been telling the truth, not just lying to rustle up drinks.

Unless some magic had gathered ashes and dust into something that could walk by the light of day.

Aurora had seen the dead walking. Cora had used her magic on the men and women she'd killed, sending their corpses to capture Aurora. She remembered the cold hands closing around her and seeing the dead, emty faces of people who wept with her over Philip only days before.

The professor hadn't been like that. Her eyes had sparkled with life. Her words had been peppered with dry humor. When she took little Philip, Aurora had felt living warmth in her hands. She wasn't some dead thing returned to life.

Was she?

If Aurora called the sheriff and told her Maleficent was back, Emma would want to speak with her face to face. If that happened, odds were Hook would come with her, especially if Emma knew he claimed to have fought Maleficent since she'd "died."

Emma hadn't even noticed Aurora wanted nothing to do with him. According to the rumors she'd heard, Emma didn't understand why _Rumplestiltskin_  had turned on Hook, though everyone knew Hook had tried to kill him—and Belle—in the past.

Aurora couldn't bring herself to go to Emma, not if it meant risking a meeting with Hook, not when all she had were suspicions that might be nothing more than her own fears. But, that left Aurora and her family on their own against the professor. If the professor was anything to be afraid of and not just an old woman gathering thorns.

What was it Mulan called impossible choices?  _Between a dragon's den and a tiger's lair._

There'd been something else Mulan had said. They'd been discussing Maleficent, and Mulan had said something in her own language. Embarrassed, Mulan had explained some of it—but just  _some_ of it. Aurora was pretty sure Mulan left out the swear words. There'd been a phrase. Mulan said it was something her people called the "Lady Dragon." Aurora had almost forgotten it. But, it had been—it had been—

A chill ran down Aurora's spine. No, she had to be remembering that wrong. She  _had_ to be. She'd barely been able to learn more than a few words and phrases of Mulan's language, if you could call her mangled pronunciations that. Mulan had been sent on a mission to her homeland before the second curse fell. As far as Aurora had been able to find out, she hadn't been swept up when they were brought here.

Maleficent had to know that tongue. When she'd cursed Philip, changing him into a beast from Mulan's legends, it had suited the dark fairy's humor to leave him only able to understand or write (he couldn't talk) in that language. At the beginning, when his human memories were easier to hold onto, he had recalled the trading outpost near the border of the Marchlands, the same village where Mulan had been stationed by her emperor. Philip had gone there, hoping to find someone who could understand him. But, his humanity had eroded under the curse. When the people fled or attacked him as the monster he seemed to be, he had responded in fury. It was only when he was wounded and close to dying that the man inside him was able to plead for help, scrawling words in the ground.

He hadn't expected the woman before him to understand. Reddish-brown curls and blue eyes, anyone could see she wasn’t from the emperor’s lands. He told Aurora later he didn't know why he tried. Except that he was dying when he needed to live to save her. Except that the beast wanted to lie down and die, but the man looked at the woman and knew—or hoped—there was still a chance. She might give him mercy. He hadn't known the woman was the daughter of the lord of the Marchlands and had been taught the tongues of the traders who passed through their lands since infancy.

That woman was still in Storybrooke. She would be able to tell her this much. Once she knew, Aurora could decide whether or not to face her fears and talk to Emma.

She picked up her phone. It still took a moment to run through the steps of how to use it and make sure she was doing it right. Then she tapped in the number and called Belle Gold.

X

Rumplestiltskin smiled as he strode towards Jones. "I've been causing trouble for you, mate?" he said, Will's accent rolling off his tongue. His mask was different from Maleficent's. Hers had been made from scholars' texts, bits of earth, and leaves. His was made with three drops of Will Scarlet's heart's blood. It had let him find the echoes of Will's life and match them to his own. He'd still managed not to lie. Not that he expected Belle to see it that way. Truth— _real_ truth—was what mattered to her. Twisting words that weren't actually false till they said whatever he wanted them to didn't count with her.

It mattered to him—it mattered immensely. True words were one of the walls he'd built to hold the darkness inside him in check. So, he had talked about the wife he loved and then said something about Will's Ana. It didn't matter if the person listening—even if the person was Belle—thought he was speaking about the same woman.  _He_ knew hadn't said anything that wasn't true.  _He_ could feel the separation between himself and his curse.

And there was so much in the Knave's life that had been easy to match against his own. There'd been a time when Will had known his true love was dead, just as Rumplestiltskin once had. A girl he cared for, Lizard, died just like Bae, because she used magic without understanding its price. The Knave had seen his sister fall through the ice and slip through his fingers, like Bae falling into another world. Even Will’s time as a genie, given great power and enslaved by it, had been so easy to match up against the Dark One's curse.

Rumplestiltskin looked at the man standing just a few feet away from him. Here was another point in common: they both hated Jones.

The Knave didn't hate him as much as Rumplestiltskin did. That kind of rage was reserved for a man named Jafar, a man who'd tortured Ana till she did as he commanded. Then he'd murdered her in front of the Knave's eyes. But, he hadn't left it there. Jafar had broken the laws of magic, ignoring the consequences. He had brought Anastasia back to life so he could cast a spell forcing her into his arms while the Knave could only watch.

But, Jones was just a thug in Will's view, no different from Wonderland’s Caterpillar or the Sheriff of Nottingham's guards, who beat up those who were weaker just because they could. Drunk as he'd been, Will remembered the pirate beating him outside the library, then threatening to kill him if he told Emma. Will would have had no more trouble than Rumplestiltskin did understanding why Jones was angry.

"This is about your pal Snotty, ain't it?" Rumplestiltskin said, still using the Knave's voice. "You put him up to it, going after Belle, didn't you? He's too stupid sober to use the right side of the loo. Waiting to jump a woman till she locked up shop would be too hard for his brain to think of."

"Gold's pet had her fun, playing hard to get. But, enough is enough. I merely suggested that strong men take what they need."

"You're new in town, mate, and about three hundred years behind the times. Around here, guys who do what Snotty tried get to rot in jail. It's not—what do you call it?— _good form_. Not that you'd know what that is."

Jones’ brow furrowed. Good, Rumplestiltskin wanted him angry. Angry men made more mistakes. "Keith told me you had a fast mouth. What were you, Hood's jester?"

"It beats being the fool. That's your job, ain't it?"

The pirate gritted his teeth. "I'm here to make you an object lesson. People need to learn what happens when you pick the wrong side in a fight," Jones said. Then he came at him with his hook

Good. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun if he came at him with his hand.

Jones had been a good fighter even before he made the (colossally stupid) mistake of running to Neverland for  _safety_. Three centuries of surviving Rumplestiltskin's father's deadly games hadn't slowed his reflexes (or sharpened his wits). In a fair fight (not that either of them were big on those), Rumplestiltskin would have bet on Jones to beat the Knave.

Rumplestiltskin wasn't Will. He was strong enough to twist Jones' arm off if he'd wanted. Instead, he caught him by the wrist, stepping back out of the hook's way as he brought it down, using the pirate's momentum to twist him around. He continued to bring Jones' arm around behind the pirate's back, as if it were a hand on a clock, letting it bend at the elbow instead of breaking it (tempting as that was). With his other hand, Rumplestiltskin twisted off the hook and had it at Jones' throat before he'd figured out that he lost.

Rumplestiltskin looked at Jones' friends. "What do you think, Captain?" he said. "Should I make you into an object lesson and show your pals what happens when they pick the wrong fight?"

"You've lost," Jones whispered.

"Oh, yeah? How's that? Getting your hook caught in your throat was all part of your master plan, was it?"

Jones was worried but he hadn't lost his wits. There was something calculating going on in his head. Jones with a plan. The gods themselves must be quaking in terror.

"You're so smart, you figure it out," Jones said. He sounded much too smug for a man a hair away from death. "Here's a hint: what's missing?"

Missing? Rumplestiltskin looked over the pirate, but there was nothing out of place about him. He looked at Jones' friends. They were about what you'd expect from a pack of dock rats whose idea of fun was seeing who would have the worst hangover in the morning. The faces had changed, but they might as well be the same crew who had stood around grinning while Jones had his fun robbing beggars and beating them up. They—

Wait, the faces.

Rumplestiltskin looked them over. Some had been here during the first curse. Others were new. A few weren't even human. He recognized two who had been Trolls in the old world and one who had been an Ogre.

His grip on Jones tightened. "Where's Snotty?"

He could feel Jones' grin. "Where do you think?"

Maybe Jones had made bail for his "pal." Maybe Emma had let him go once he'd sobered up. But, wherever he was, he wasn't in a jail cell anymore—and Belle had no one to guard her.

X

Belle sat curled up on the couch, feeling dull and empty, trying to think of all the things she should be doing tonight. Tonight. . . . She was too tired to plan, tonight. Tomorrow. She would try to plan tomorrow.

No, she would get to work on  _leaving_  tomorrow. There, she'd said it. She couldn't stay in Storybrooke, not any longer. There was no place here for Rumplestiltskin's child.

So many things needed to be done, though. Like money. She'd have to get everything she could out of the banks. If it was possible to access the accounts across the town line, surely she'd have seen some evidence by now that Rumple was doing that? Unless he was trying to stay hidden from her. His cuff links would have brought a good price if he pawned them.

His wedding ring would fetch a good price, too. It might have been less painful to part with than the cufflinks.

A mugger might have thought the same thing. For all she knew, her husband was lying unconscious in a hospital somewhere or wandering the streets after a blow to the head, everything lost and forgotten. He could have lost his wits and started telling people exactly who he was and where he came from. Maybe he was locked up in an asylum being fed drugs for an illness he didn't have while therapists drove him insane, telling him to believe his entire life was a lie.

No, she couldn't think these things. Whatever happened, wherever he was, she knew he was alive. He wasn't lying in some ditch, bleeding away the last of his life, unseen, any cry for help unheard. His name would be fading from the dagger if his life were in danger. But, she'd seen the letters, clear and black, before leaving the shop. He was  _alive._

She needed to hold onto that and to make a plan. Money, she would have to get money. Other things she should take with her, things in the shop, his clothes, anything that had been Bae's. . . .

How could she pack up everything without people knowing what she was doing? Without having to hear them fight and argue about whether she had a  _right_  to leave them?

_No one decides my fate but me._

Maybe so, but there were a lot of people who could decide to whether to rent her a trailer or get in her way while she loaded it.

Loading it. There was another problem. Belle put her hand over her stomach. She knew about women who had pushed themselves too hard when they were expecting, and it had cost them their children. She'd been pushing herself so much already. What would loading a truck with every memory of Rumplestiltskin's very long life do to her child?

The thought of the small life inside her pushed her up off the couch. She needed to eat. The idea of food still made her feel ill, but her child needed nourishment. Belle went to the small kitchen and looked through what she had. Soup and bread seemed safest. And warm milk. Mothers in the Marchlands swore by warm milk.

As she started to search through her cupboards, putting together the simple meal, she thought about other things she should take care of. There was the library. Maybe she should just leave the keys at Granny's and let them figure it out. She wished she could pack up all the books in the library and take them with her. At least, that way, she would know they were being read. There were calls she should make. Who could she get trailer from? And was there any way she could hire people to load it for her without them realizing  _why_  she wanted everything Gold owned packed up? Tell them it was for storage?

Belle pulled out her phone. It had been off since she made the necessary calls about the library not opening this morning. Plenty of messages had piled up, most of them from Jones. Not feeling up to the long list of angry accusations and demands, Belle ignored those. She ignored several others on the same principle, but one caught her attention. Princess Aurora had been trying to get in touch with her. Belle had met her, but they were only nodding acquaintances. Aurora, though, was on the short list of people who had never told Belle it was a good thing Rumplestiltskin was gone. She also hadn't asked (or demanded) magic from Belle since waking up in Storybrooke. Curious, Belle played her message.

"Hello, Belle?" The princess sounded nervous and uncertain. "I don't know if you remember me. This is Aurora, Philip's wife—the Philip you saved when he was turned into a  _yaoguai_." As if Belle were in danger of confusing them with all the other Auroras and Philips in town. "I need . . . I was hoping you could help me with a translation. Mulan—you remember Mulan? You met her when you met Philip—told me the words for 'dragon woman' in her language." There was a pause, the sort of pause Belle knew. It was the kind that meant you were hesitating before giving a very long explanation—the kind of explanation that told people what your problems were and burdened them with trying to figure out whether they should do something or continue ignoring them. Usually, Belle decided not to bother with the explanation. Aurora seemed to decide the same thing. All she said was, "Mulan told me you knew her language. I—I was hoping you could tell me what they are." Another pause, another decision. "It's important. Please, call me back if you get the chance."

Important. Everyone said everything was important. A magic potion for a cough was important when Tom Clark sold medicine that worked just as well. Hook feeling bored was important. Everyone and their hangnail was important.

But, Aurora hadn't been one of the people making Belle's life a misery. Even before she played it, Belle knew the princess at least  _thought_ her call was important. Once she'd played it, Belle knew it was.

It had crossed her mind earlier but just as a joke, like knowing  _Lauren_ could be read in Mulan's language as  _lau ren,_ old person. If  _Aurora_  was calling her and asking this . . . then it wasn't a joke. It was real.

Belle hit the button to call back. "Aurora? This is Belle." She was too tired for niceties or beating around the bush. "You asked how to say 'dragon woman.'" She thought but didn't say,  _you're asking because you met her. Or you're afraid you did._  " _Lóngnǚ,"_ Belle said. "The correct way to say it is _lóngnǚ_." Or Longneaux, that was how the professor had spelled her name.

She paused. It wasn't her problem. None of the things happening in Storybrooke were her problem.

Everyone was somebody's Anastasia.

"If you're afraid—if you think you have something to be afraid of, can you meet me at Granny's? It's safer there, with all the people around. And Granny has her crossbow." Belle paused as Aurora answered.

"Right," she said, grabbing her purse. "I'll meet you there, and we'll decide what to do." Belle locked the apartment door and ran out of the library.  She didn’t see the eyes watching her as she left.

 


	17. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora meets someone at Granny's. Belle meets someone else outside her apartment.

Aurora paused at the door before coming into Granny's, looking around and trying to spot Bell, but she didn't see her. She held little Philip a bit tighter. This was wrong. Belle should be here by now. The library was close by, and Belle hadn't had to bundle up a sleeping baby to get here.

She went over to the counter where Granny was working the register. Granny smiled when she saw her. "Aurora, what brings you out?"

"I was supposed to meet Belle here," Aurora said, not mentioning evil fairies or dragons. "Have you seen her?"

Granny frowned when Aurora mentioned Belle. "Not since this morning. That girl is working herself half to death. Have you called her? It wouldn't surprise me if she fell asleep on her feet."

Aurora got out her phone, but all she got was Belle's voice mail. "She's not answering."

Granny studied her. "This is about more than meeting over a piece of cake, isn't it?"

"I—maybe. Yes."

"You don't have to tell me, but is it something that Belle might go to the pawn shop for? Get a magic tool or a potion or something?"

The knot inside Aurora's chest eased. A magic tool. If there was anything that could deal with Maleficent, it would be in Rumplestiltskin's shop. "I think so."

Granny gave a curt nod. "Sit down and wait a bit. Then, if she doesn't show up, we can make some more calls."

Aurora sat down in a booth and began looking over the menu. No coffee, she decided. When she drank it in the evening, she was up all night. Maybe a muffin and some milk. . . .

Someone was standing next to the table. Whoever it was cleared her throat. Aurora looked up, expecting to see Belle.

It was Maleficent.

X

The way out of the caretaker's apartment was down the back of the library, away from the main street. It really wasn't that late, but there was no one about. Belle hardly noticed as she hurried down the stairs—until a hand reached out and grabbed her, shoving her against the building.

"Remember me?" Keith asked. "You owe me, _wench_. And it's time to pay up."

Wench. That's what he'd called her when they'd first met in the Enchanted Forest. He'd tried to make a deal with Rumplestiltskin, a night with her in trade for information. Rumplestiltskin had torn out his tongue and offered to trade it back to him instead. Keith hadn't liked the deal then and he didn't like it now.

Belle struggled to get free of him, but this wasn't last night. Keith was sober. He held her pinned tight against the wall, and there was no door behind her for her to slip into. But what he wanted—and what he was willing to do to get it—hadn't changed. This time, he started with her shirt, tearing it open. He took a moment to look at her, evaluating his prize. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something glittering between her breasts. It was her wedding ring. She'd hidden it away soon after Rumple was gone because of the looks people gave her, but nothing would make her stop wearing it. The way he looked at it made her feel more naked than his attack.

But, Keith didn't look at it long. With a smile, he pulled out a long, thin blade. The hilt matched the sword Hook often wore. He held the knife against her throat, though he barely glanced up from her chest as he did it. It made him careless—Belle hoped he was being careless—and the blade drew blood. She felt it trickle down her skin.

"You're going to be a good girl, Belle, aren't you?" Keith asked. "This isn't going to get ugly, is it? I've had enough of playing your games." With his other hand, he reached up and gripped her breast through her bra, squeezing it painfully.

"Don't. Please, Keith, don't do this."

His hand tightened bruisingly. "You're not putting me off, Belle—or should I call you Lacey? What was that, a business name back home? Gold may have paid a good price for you, but he's not here anymore. Did you think it was funny to lure me into that alley and let him beat me up? Well, if you like it rough, girl, believe me, I can give you what you want."

Lacey. That had been the persona Regina cursed her with, a barfly who thought nothing about dumping one date before the food was even served to find another man in back of the diner. If Rumple hadn't found her and pulled Keith off her, Belle's cursed self would have done everything Keith had wanted now and more—or she would have gotten bored and walked away, leaving Keith with no idea how things had gone wrong.

Or that's what Lacey thought she could do. Since her memories were nothing but lies created by a woman who hated her, Belle had her doubts that it would have worked out that way.

This time, there was no Rumplestiltskin to rescue her.

But, the memory of Lacey gave her plan. The bare shreds of a plan. Time, she had to buy time, get somewhere she could fight him. Keith believed she was a courtesan, a seductress, that this was all a game to her, one she enjoyed playing.

All right, then. She could play the game

Trying not to show how sick and terrified she felt, Belle smiled at him. She tried to remember the heated looks Lacey had given men at The Rabbit Hole. "Not _here_ ," she told him, feeling sick to her stomach. "With our luck, Granny will be by any minute. Wouldn't you rather do this in a bed?" Keith glanced up towards her apartment. "Not there either," Belle purred—or tried to purr. She was no actress. Would Keith believe any of this?

And was she even making the right decision? The apartment would be the first place people would look for her if they noticed she was missing, wouldn't it? How long till Aurora came looking? Will—she wasn't sure about Will. He might be back in a few minutes or a few days—or never. He'd acted like he cared when she first told him the test results, but he'd run away quickly enough. She was carrying Rumplestiltskin's child. Who in Storybrooke would want anything to do with her, knowing that?

The pregnancy test she'd taken was upstairs in her apartment with its tell-tale results. Belle didn't think pregnancy tests had figured much in Keith's life in this world. But, if he saw it, if he realized what it meant. . . .

Some men, rapists or not, would run away from a pregnant woman as fast as their legs could carry them. Some wouldn't care one way or the other.

Some, if they knew it was the Dark One's child, would think they were doing the town a favor if they could just get rid of it. Belle remembered a young woman brought to the infirmary during the Ogre Wars, almost beaten to death by the man who had been her lover when he found out she was with child. He'd been trying to make her miscarry. Belle remembered the terrible pool of blood that had poured out of her. He'd succeeded.

Not the apartment, then. And not the pawn shop. Even Keith would figure something was up if she tried to lure him there. That left only one place.

Using every speck of seduction she could conjure up from Lacey's memories, Belle said, "Want to see what kind of sheets the Dark One has?"

X

"Where's Snotty?" Rumplestiltskin demanded again.

"Wherever Belle is," Jones said.

Rumplestiltskin was ready to vanish right then, to disappear out of this alley and reappear back in Belle's apartment—and to the Dark One's Tomb with anyone who had a problem with him being back in town. But, Jones added, "Or wherever he's taken her."

_ Wherever he's taken her. _ __ Keith had had a day to sober up. Maybe he was actually thinking. A smart man would take Belle someplace else, somewhere people wouldn't come looking for her. "So, where'd he take her? And, if you don't want your hook buried in your throat, you'd better answer."

Jones laughed, as if it didn't matter that his own hook was against his throat. Of course, Jones thought this was Will Scarlet, a thief not a murderer.

_ Idiot, _ __ Rumplestiltskin thought. Unlike Jones, Will might prefer to walk away from a fight instead of bully his victims for fun, but he could be pushed too far. He'd seen his sister fall through the ice and die. He'd seen the young girl he'd taken in lying dead, her wish for love turning fatally against her. He'd seen the woman he loved, Anastasia, tortured and murdered before his eyes. You didn't threaten a woman Will Scarlet cared about, not if you wanted to live.

If Will Scarlet had been holding this hook, Jones might already be a corpse. Clueless as ever, Jones just said, "No idea where he's gone, mate. Doesn't matter. You won't find her," he added a sly snigger. "Not in time."

Rumplestiltskin felt a wave of fury. "She saved your bleeding life!" he snarled, Will's words, his anger. "And this is how you pay her back?"

Jones had been enjoying himself, but that changed him. " _Her_ ," he growled. "Rumplestiltskin's pet. You think I needed help from _her?_ Maybe Nottingham taking her down a peg will teach her a lesson."

Rumplestiltskin's head ached. He'd once read once of men who drowned because they wouldn't listen to a _woman_ tell them how to save themselves. Jones was cut from the same cloth. He might accept rescue from a woman he'd decided _belonged_ to him but not from the serving maid of his worst enemy, not from a woman he'd already been unable to trick or charm into helping him.

"You'd better pray he hasn't, 'mate.'" Rumplestiltskin pressed the hook a little closer. "Where. Is. He?"

Hook laughed. "Not telling."

Snails couldn't talk, and torturing it out of Jones would take too long. Rumplestiltskin looked over Jones' friends, wondering which of them would be easiest to break, when someone else spoke up.

"You won't tell him, Hook?" Emma asked as she came up behind them. Her gun was drawn. "Then you'd better tell me."

X

Keith caught his breath, a flicker of fear in his eyes. For a moment, meeting his gaze, Belle hoped the mention of the Dark One—and reminding Keith of her connection to him—would be enough to chase him off. But, he got a grip on himself. Smiling, his grip on her breast lightened, becoming almost bearable. "The Dark One's bed. . . . I thought you hadn't been back to his house since he left."

She gave him Lacey's cocky grin. _Convince him and stay alive,_ she told herself. "I haven't found anyone man enough to be worth it. Care to give it a try?"

Belle could see lust and fear warring in his eyes, not sure which she wanted to win. Fear could make men do crazy things, but if he would just be afraid enough to go away. . . .

"All right," Keith said. "The Dark One's place it is. Now, turn around."

"Turn around. . . ?"

"Sorry, Lacey, I don't trust you. Be a good girl, and maybe that'll change, hmm? Now, turn around." He moved the blade back just enough she could move without slicing her throat against it. Belle did what he told her.

When her back was to him, Keith moved the knife away. Then he pulled her shirt off. Belle's heart was thudding against her ribs, afraid he meant to take her here and now after all. She heard tearing sounds. A few more moments passed.

"Keith. . . ." Belle began.

"Hands behind your back," Keith ordered. "Now."

Belle complied. Keith tied her hands together, yanking the rope tight. If it was rope. It felt softer than it should and stray threads brushed against her skin. He must have made them it of her shirt. He turned her around. The knife was back against her throat. "Open your mouth." When Belle obeyed, he put a small wad of cloth in her mouth. Then he tied it in place with another rope made from a twisted piece of her shirt, gagging her. He ran a hand over her ribs. "You've gotten scrawny since your lord and master went away," he said. "Maybe that will change once you have a real man." She'd worn a skirt with pockets. He slid his hand in, taking a moment to feel her up before pulling out her keys. He gestured towards Rumple's car. "Over there."

Keith had her walk in front of him. When they reached the car, he held the knife against her with his right hand while, with only a little fumbling, he unlocked it with the left. Then, he shoved her in.

This wasn't good. There were weapons, magical and mundane, up at the house. But, to use them, Belle needed her hands free. She tried to hide her revulsion as Keith pulled the seatbelt in place over her, pawing over her as he did it, effectively locking her in. If there was one thing the Sheriff of Nottingham had learned in his fight against outlaws, she thought ruefully, it was how to tie them up.

Belle tried to breathe steadily. What would Lacey do in this situation? Even tied up and gagged, Lacey would be trying to play Keith. She would probably give him one of her sultry smiles, as if this was her idea of fun and games. And Keith would have believed it—maybe, hopefully—right up until the moment Lacey was able to club him over the head or stab him with his own knife.

Belle couldn't do that. It was all she could do not to look disgusted or afraid—especially when Keith looked at her, securely tied in place, and got that heated look in his eyes again. He put the knife down somewhere she couldn't see and slid both his hands up and down her chest.

"Want to do it here, Lacey-girl?" he asked. "A little treat to get us started? We can finish up at Gold's later."

Belle reached for Lacey, trying to find a way out of this. _Don't look afraid,_ she told herself. The moment Keith knew how afraid she really was, she was done for.

If only she could speak, convince him he didn't want to do this. Lacey would have mocked him for acting like a teenager who'd run off with his father's keys. _Making out in a borrowed car? I thought you weren't a little boy, Keith. Is this really the best you can do?_

Maybe. It might work. If she were Lacey. If she could talk.

Belle would have tried to find something human inside of Keith, something that could feel compassion. _Begging for mercy,_ she thought. That would only make Keith feel more powerful. He would enjoy every minute of hurting her.

_ Please, gods, please, _ __ Belle prayed, fighting back terror. _Let him wait. Please, I just need more time._

Keith nuzzled her throat with wet, slobbery kisses. But, as his hands slid around her back, trying to get to the hooks on her bra, her bound arms got in the way. He pulled back in frustration. Relief flooded Belle.

It must have shown in her face. Or maybe his mistook her look for something else, mockery, spite, she couldn't tell. All she knew was that his eyes flared with anger and his hand closed bruisingly around her chin. She couldn't tell if he meant to hit her or if he was trying to figure out how to kiss her with the gag in the way. His hands went over her face, toying with the cloth.

If he took away the gag, if she screamed, was there anyone who would hear her? Was there anyone who would care?

Keith shoved her back. "Later," he said. "You're going to show me everything you've ever done for the Dark One." He gave her a smile that was no doubt meant to be seductive. As he started up the car and drove off, he began sharing some of his fantasies about what he thought she must have done with her husband.

Belle tried very hard to think like Lacey. Listening to this wouldn't have sickened Lacey. She might even have been amused at what he was saying and how wrong he was about Rumple instead of feeling the bile rising up her throat. She imagined being sick with the gag in her mouth. If that happened, would she choke to death on her own vomit? Or would it just make a disgusting mess in her mouth? Keith would probably be amused so long as he didn't try to kiss her.

Vomit. Filth. Choking. Those were easier things to deal with than listening to Keith. She tried to concentrate on them. _I can get through this,_ Belle thought.

_ I have to. _

When they got to the house, Keith parked the car. He got out, then, went around to her side, yanking her onto the street. Belle stumbled and tried to right herself. Keith pushed her forward before she managed to regain her feet. Somehow, she kept from falling.

"Almost home," he said with a laugh, gesturing towards the stairs. The light was dim, but she saw the knife flash in his hand. It would have been too much to hope he'd forget it in the car.

The house was dark. No porch light or warm glow from the windows to let the neighbors see a half-naked woman, bound and gagged, being forced up the stairs at knife-point. Keith pushed her against the door, keeping her pinned and making sure she felt his blade tickling her ribs, as he reached over her and unlocked it.

Belle expected him to shove her again. Instead, his hand slid caressingly down her back, resting against the bare skin just above her skirt. As if he thought he were her seducer, not her rapist. In Keith's mind, there probably wasn't that much of a difference. Now, he was certain she couldn't escape, he could concentrate on what he'd brought her here for.

The house was dark. Belle heard the door close behind her and the lock click before Keith turned on the lights. He stepped in front of her, drawing her close as he lifted the knife towards her face. The knife slid through the rags tied around her mouth. Keith pulled the gag out, letting it drop on the floor. He looked her over hungrily, like a little boy facing a pile of candy and trying to decide where to start. "So, where's the Dark One's bed?" he asked.

"Just a minute," Belle said, trying to use Lacey's teasing voice. She could do this. Ignore the ropes binding her hands. Pretend she wasn't terrified for her life. There was a child depending on her. She _had_ to do this.

There was a sword hanging on the wall nearby. A beautiful—and functional—19th century rifle was in the next room. Nearby, a display cabinet from pre-revolution France held an enchanted opal that would have slowly (too slowly for Belle's purposes) drained the life out of him. A gold ring would have enlarged to a magic circle, trapping him within. All of them required her to have her hands free.

All right, then. She would just have to try more mundane solutions.

"I don't know about you, but I could use a drink." She gave him the look Lacey had used to get guys she just hustled at pool to pay her bar tab. Nodding her head towards Rumple's den, she said, "Rumplestiltskin has scotch older than he is."

Ah, that worked. Keith had been in jail all day. If he'd had anything to drink since he got out, she couldn't smell it on his breath. He glanced up the stairs and then towards the den. Belle slid away from him and towards the den. As if her bound hands didn't matter. As if she didn't care that he had a knife and had already cut her with it. She turned around when she reached the door, afraid he had wised up and wasn't following her—and just as afraid that he was.

She needn't have worried (or hoped). Keith was right on her heels. There were fewer weapons in this room. Keith spotted one of them, a jewel encrusted letter-opener on Rumple's desk (unless it was a jeweled knife Rumple used as a letter opener. Belle had never been sure which). He picked it up, examining the gems in its hilt and its tiny scabbard. "Are those real?"

She didn't even need to think about how Lacey would answer that. _I have to do this,_ Belle thought. _I have to convince him._ She leaned back by the bottle scotch, arching her back. Her wedding ring sparkled in the lamplight. " _Everything's_ real." She nodded towards the scotch. "But. . . ." she shrugged her shoulders suggestively. "Looks like you'll have to pour." Would he fall for this? Hook wouldn't have, not that she'd have tried this on him. The only chance she would have stood with Hook was, if he thought she was so beaten down, he might as well untie her and let her do the work.

Keith looked Belle up and down approvingly. "Gold had some beautiful things, didn't he? Were you worth the price he paid for you?"

_ No, _ __ Belle thought, remembering their last meeting at the town line, _I wasn't._ "He always thought so."

Keith grinned. "All right. Turn around, and I'll cut you loose."

Belle turned around. Keith's knife slid through her bonds. "There, you see?" he said. "I can be nice." He brushed her hair away from her neck and began kissing her along her bare shoulder. "What are you going to do for me for being so nice?"

Belle leaned over the glasses, moving away from Keith. "Well, first, I'm going to pour you a drink," she said, filling a glass and handing it to him.

"That's a good start," Keith said, taking the glass from her. "Do you know what I'd like you to do next?"

She needed to put distance between them but she didn't know how. "Why don't you tell me?" Belle remembered watching her father's men-at-arms in their practice sessions, remembering the advice they gave as they trained. _Play along with your enemy. Don't strike before it's time. Wait for your opening. It will come._

Keith downed the scotch in one gulp and held it out for her to refill. Still managing to smile, Belle poured him more. Keith didn't seem to notice she wasn't drinking. Instead, he was looking at Rumple's desk. He ran a hand along the carved edge of Rumple's desk. It was a beautiful antique, made in the 19th century and as large as some kitchen tables.

"I want you to strip and lie down this. Let me get a good look at all of you."

No, it wasn't supposed to be happening like this. He was supposed to spend time drinking. With luck, he was supposed to pass out drunk without any more work on her part. _Don't panic,_ she told herself. _Stay in control._ "O-on the desk?" Belle said, trying to sound confident. "It's not that comfortable, trust me."

"Done it here before, have you? Did Gold call you in when he was bored or just wanted an afternoon treat?"

Belle tried to breathe steadily and keep calm, sure that Keith must have been able to see her heart beating against her chest. He was locked in one of his fantasies. Being sick wouldn't help her—and it wouldn't help her child. _Think like Lacey. That's the only way you'll get out of this. Pretend to be her._

She shrugged again, lifting her bare shoulder. "If that's what you want." Slowly, hoping she looked seductive rather than scared, she walked to the desk. This was Keith, she reminded herself. He hadn't been able to figure out getting beaten up in an alley meant she wasn't interested.

She should slide off the bra, she thought. It was a frumpy, practical bra. Getting rid of it would feed Keith's fantasies. As long as he thought he was getting whatever he imagined, he would give her time. But, she couldn't. The thought made her sick.

He could cut it off her. Belle remembered Regina's guards searching her for any hidden weapons or tools. They'd cut her clothes apart at the hems, checking for whatever they thought she might have sewn into them. But, those had been Regina's slaves, their hearts torn out and kept in her collection. They'd been as cold as Ingrid's magic as they'd manhandled her. Keith would be worse, much worse.

_ Don't think about it. _

Casually, she went behind the desk, expecting to hear Keith ask what she was up to and tell her to stop at any moment. But, he just watched her, as if she were a child who thought she was being clever, as if she were a mouse who thought she could outrun the cat toying with her. "Think you're going to get away from me?" he said.

Belle tried to look amused, as if he'd made a good joke. "You were right. Gold and I did a lot of things in here." Paperwork, sitting together reading in the evening, nothing Keith would understand. "There's a little toy of Gold's that you've _got_ to see," Belle told him, sliding open a drawer. "Trust me, it will make this a lot easier."

"The perverted imp." Keith said it appreciatively. Even though that was exactly what she wanted Keith to think she meant, Belle felt a wave of anger towards him. Keith didn't just think Rumplestiltskin was a monster like him, he admired him for it. If Rumple left a trail of dead women behind him, she thought furiously, Keith would probably want him canonized.

_ No, don't show anger. Don't even feel it. You're almost home. _

There. Lying beside paper and a bottle of magic ink, she saw it.

Yes, this would make things a _lot_ easier.

Belle picked it up and pointed it at Keith, her hand on the trigger. Keith's smile vanished, which Belle understood. She'd never been able to smile when a gun was aimed at her, either.


	18. Words Spoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma learns the truth about Killian. Killian learns the truth about Will.

Belle held the gun steady—steadier than she'd held the keys last night while locking up the shop door. "Lie down, Keith."

"Bitch," he said. "You invited me up here, remember?"

"And now I'm inviting you to lie down. Or get shot. Do you really think your corpse is going to bother me?  How many do you think Rumple and I have buried in the basement?" None, so far as she knew. But, there was no reason to tell Keith that. He lay down on the floor.

"Hands behind your head," Belle ordered. "And spread your legs." Positioned like that, it would take two motions instead of one to get to where he could stand up.

She should have known Keith wouldn’t see it that way. "Knew you liked the rough stuff," he said smugly.

Belle fought the urge to just shoot him. "I know how to handle prisoners," she said. After all, she'd been one for thirty years, first in Regina's tower, then in Regina's asylum.

And she was sick of it. Sick of people like Regina and Keith dismissing her, treating her like nothing. "Do you know what was the worst thing when Rumple tortured someone?" she said. 'Someone' meant Robin of Locksley, another thing not to tell the Sheriff of Nottingham.  He’d approve. "It's the blood. Do you have any idea how much laundry I had to do when that happened? Do you know how long it took to get those stains out?" All the anger and the frustration and the fed-up impatience she felt with everyone who thought they knew how she should be living her life came boiling out at a man who still didn't take her refusal seriously even when she was pointing a gun at him, ready to shoot. "At least Rumple had potions that could remove bloodstains. Have you EVER tried to get blood out of clothes in this world? And in our world, before I came to Rumple's castle, it was even worse.” She was thinking of the Ogre Wars and treating the wounded in the castle infirmary, but she hoped Keith was taking it to mean she was a psychotic serial killer with a collection of corpses worse than Regina's collection of hearts. "If I have to shoot you here, do you know how many HOURS it will take to get your blood out of the carpet? Have you ever TRIED to scrape dried brains off a wall? I am SICK and TIRED of cleaning up after everyone in this town! Do you understand me!?"

Keith made a whimpering noise. Belle realized her hand was beginning to tighten around the trigger. It would be so easy. . . .

No. Even Rumple, for all his anger and threats and the Dark Curse inside him, had been able to keep himself from killing Robin—a man who'd broken into his home, threatened him, and put an arrow through his chest. For all Rumple’s show of torturing the man—and for all the aprons Belle had had to clean—Robin had walked away without so much as a limp the moment Belle let him go. Outside the castle, he'd made such good time, it had taken Rumple's carriage hours to catch up.

If the Dark One could hold back, so could she.

Belle took a ragged breath, trying to regain some control. She had to call someone. Probably the sheriff. She wondered what Emma would think when she came. If she could be bothered to come. If she didn't have something more important to do.

And, what if Hook came with her? He always seemed to be lurking in Emma's shadow these days. He'd be on Keith's side. How long before he started telling Emma Belle must have lured Keith up here? She'd asked him to the house, after all. She'd invited him into this room and given him a drink. How long before Emma was convinced Belle was the one to blame?

After all, what was she? The Dark One's woman, the one who admitted seeing the truth about Rumplestiltskin—and who married him anyway.

She wanted to call Will. If nothing else, he could throw Keith out while she held onto the gun. But, she hadn't gotten his number. There was no way to get ahold of him. Calling the sheriff was her only choice unless she really did want to bury Keith in the basement.

 _Too much work_ , Belle told herself, moving towards the phone.

That was when the door to the house was kicked open.

X

The first sign Emma had had earlier that something Notting wasn’t what Hook had led her to believe was when he woke up.  But, no one expected a guy with a hangover who woke up in jail for a robbery he really couldn't remember committing (Emma's superpower didn't always work, but it kicked in loud and clear on that one) to be making a good impression.

But, that had been followed by the chat she had with Granny when she brought over lunch. She’d taken over the job from Ruby, who usually got sent. She didn't say why but, eyes shining with a cold light that reminded Emma Ruby wasn't the only wolf in town, she'd said that she wasn't at all surprised to see Notting in a cell.

It was the conversation with Belle, though, that really got her thinking. Killian had been so cheerful every time he talked about Belle and Notting. According to him, Notting was everything Gold wasn't. Social, for example. He'd told her how Notting had lived in the middle of one of the larger towns in the old world. He'd had friends and coworkers, with a reputation that was known and respected for miles around. Notting had been given a royal appointment as the town's defender, that was how Killian had put it.

He hadn’t said, "Nottingham" and he sure hadn’t said, "sheriff."

Will used to commit highway robbery, the literal kind. He’d _admitted_ it. If he kept a journal, Emma wouldn't be surprised to find out the pages mentioning her—or any other sheriffs—were covered with skulls and "DIE! DIE! DIE!" next to their names.

Belle, however, wasn't into highway robbery. She was a quiet, law-abiding librarian. It had taken less than a day of Belle knowing Will when he was sober (Emma supposed the break-in to the library didn’t count) to let him in the store and have him putting away magic supplies.  But, just seeing Notting on the street was enough to make Belle duck back in, barricade the door, and sleep in the back room.

Emma thought there was more to the story than that. She'd had a feeling Scarlet would have liked to tell her, sheriff or not, but Belle was somehow holding him back.

Emma thought over that meeting. There'd been something else that was off about it. It wasn't just that Will Scarlet, the professional thief, was the one wanting to spill all to the cops. There'd been something off with Belle. Will had seemed downright protective of her, and Belle. . . .

Belle had only just met Will, but there was already something different about her in the past day. Belle had been burning the candle from both en—OK, bad metaphor.  Emma remembered the last candle from Gold’s shop that burned at both ends and what it had done to Cora. Belle had been wearing herself out since she'd had to take over for Rumplestiltskin and the fairies and all the other jobs it seemed like only she could do.

Emma could understand that. She was a sheriff and savior and magic student and half-a-dozen other things. They were all pushing themselves harder than they ought to. But, Belle was letting the pressure get to her a lot more than Emma was. Today was the first time in weeks Emma had seen her with her makeup up to its old standards. Maybe even a little beyond its old standards. She'd really piled on the foundation, which was funny because she hadn't done much with her hair. Maybe she'd been interrupted or maybe—

Emma stopped, thinking it over again. A woman with too much makeup but who otherwise hadn't put too much effort into her appearance, a woman who seemed scared of a certain man—scared enough she went out of her way to avoid him.

And another man who wanted to talk to the cops, to get them to do something about it, but the woman stopped him.

No, that was the bail bonds person talking. That was the cynic who saw everyone as a criminal on the run, who saw every guy she met as a jerk who was just using her and the only question was whether or not she it was worth dating him before he stabbed her in the back.

Killian liked him. She'd heard the truth in his voice when he said he thought Notting was good for Belle, that she deserved a guy like him.

But, people made mistakes. There were guys who had all their pals thinking they were the best thing ever who went home and beat their kids bloody.

Or their girlfriends.

She tried to talk about it to Killian when he came to bail Notting out, but he'd just smiled cheerfully. "Don't worry, love. Keith's a great guy. He's just what Belle needs."

"I think he should give her some space," Emma said. "Just for now. Until this burglary thing is cleared up." Cleared up. As if Notting had been caught jaywalking.

But, Tom Clark was already wavering on pressing charges. Yeah, his place had been broken into, but the guy had paid for what he'd taken. And he'd shown good taste in beer. Apparently, to a Dwarf, that covered a lot of sins.

"I'll talk to him," Killian promised. "Don't worry. I'll make sure he knows to treat her right."

He was telling the truth. So, why didn't Emma believe him?

Killian had taken Notting over to his place. When David saw Killian heading over to The Rabbit Hole later, Notting wasn't with him.

Maybe he’d decided to do the smart thing, Emma thought. Maybe he was laying low, staying sober, and giving Belle her space.

Emma tried to believe it. She really did. Then, she gave up and called The Rabbit Hole, asking if Killian Jones was there.

"Sorry," the bartender said. "He just left with a few of his buddies. Maybe they're heading over to Granny's? They said something about a merry man they had to meet. Robin's guys mostly drink at Granny's if they're not here or over at their campsite."

A merry man. Scarlet.

 _Don't be paranoid, Emma_ , she told herself. Killian didn't have any reason to go after Scarlet.

She headed out. She wasn't sure where Scarlet lived, but he'd been sticking close to Belle. Both Belle's library apartment, where she'd been living since Gold left, and the pawn shop were in the same general direction if you were heading over from The Rabbit Hole. She went down the road, not sure what she was looking for or if she would recognize it when she saw it—

Until she saw the group of men heading down the alley.

Alarm bells were going off in Emma's head. Oh, she tried telling herself there were all kinds of innocent reasons for a group of men to head down an alley. She just didn't buy any of them.

There was only her, she thought, figuring the odds. One woman, one gun, and an erratic talent for magic.

At the very least, she didn't have to be stupid enough to jump right into a pack of thugs. She knew this part of town pretty well. There was another alley not far from here. She could cut down it and come at them the other way, where they wouldn't be expecting it.

It would also give her a chance to see if they were doing anything besides taking a shortcut or coming in the back door of a place one of these guys lived. Just because every instinct she had told her this was trouble didn't mean she was right.

For a minute, when she saw Scarlet holding Killian's own hook against his throat, she'd hoped he was the one in the wrong. OK, he was outnumbered, and the rest of those guys looked nasty. That didn't mean he had a good reason to be threatening Killian. Being outnumbered doesn't mean being _right_.

She knew she was kidding herself but she held onto the hope that, somehow, this wasn’t what she thought it was.  She managed to hold onto that hope till she was close enough to hear what they were saying.

"Where's Snotty?" Scarlet demand. Snotty. That was his name for Notting.

"Wherever Belle is—or wherever he's taken her."

_Wherever Belle is._

Killian had told her, “ _Don't worry. I'll make sure he knows to treat her right_.”

She’d heard the truth in his voice.  She just hadn't heard what he was saying.

It should shock her. But . . . it didn't. She remembered when she'd first met Killian, the jokes he'd made about women—the jokes he'd made about what he'd like to do to her. She couldn't say she'd never seen this side of him before.

"So, where'd he take her?" Scarlet said. "And, if you don't want your hook buried in your throat, you'd better answer."

He meant it. Emma didn’t need magic to hear his desperation, his _anger_. One wrong move, and Killian was a dead man.

Killian didn't hear it. He laughed as if Scarlet were just a kid acting tough. "No idea where he's gone, mate," Killian said cheerfully. "Doesn't matter. You won't find her." Then, he sniggered.  _Sniggered._ As if this were a schoolyard joke. As if he weren't talking about a woman's life. "Not in time."

"She saved your bleeding life, and this is how you pay her back?" Scarlet said, asking the question Emma wanted answered.

This was wrong. It had to be wrong. In a minute, Killian would say something and she would understand what was really going on.

Instead, Killian's face flushed with anger. " _Her_ ," he growled. "Rumplestiltskin's pet. You think I needed help from  _her?_ Maybe Nottingham taking her down a peg will teach her a lesson."

Emma stared at him. She'd heard the gossip around town, how people said _Killian_ was the one who'd stopped Gold, not Belle. She'd thought she'd understood where that was coming from. It wasn't like she'd lied about what happened when people asked her. She told them how she and Snow ran in and got caught in Gold's spell, unable to move. She told them how she could see Killian high above in the clock tower, standing by Gold, and how Belle had suddenly been there.

It made sense that people found it hard to believe. Belle looked like she couldn't win a fight with Sister Astrid. How were people supposed to believe she took down the Dark One? How were they supposed to believe it when they admitted Snow White, Warrior Princess, and Sheriff Emma Swan, aka, the Savior, had been stopped cold before they were through the door? Of course, they figured the clever pirate was the hero of the story. What else made sense?

Emma had put it down to the way gossip went, people telling the story they wanted to hear instead of the one that really happened. She'd never thought maybe Killian was telling his own version of events.

Yeah, looked like the Storybrooke gossips weren't the only ones who only heard what they wanted to hear. Add Emma Swan to the top of that list.

Belle had saved Killian's life. And he couldn't forgive that.

Scarlet looked like he was having almost as much trouble hearing this as Emma, but he stayed on topic. "You'd better pray he hasn't, mate. Where. Is. He?"

Killian laughed again. "Not telling."

He was enjoying this, Emma thought. A woman was going to be kidnapped and raped, maybe even murdered, by the sound of it. And Killian was _enjoying_ it.

Emma drew her gun. "You won't tell him, Hook?" She'd avoided using that stupid, pirate nickname ever since they'd started dating. It didn't seem to fit. He wasn't like the stories, she told herself, he wasn't the cold-blooded pirate who talked about good form while murdering children.

She'd been wrong.

"Then you'd better tell me."

Emma thought Killian looked troubled but just for a minute. Then, he looked relieved—even smug. Anger overrode the sick, empty feeling inside her. He was so sure of himself, so certain he could twist her around his little finger (or his oversized fishhook).

He didn't even notice as his friends, seeing the sheriff with a gun added to the mix, cleared out. Unless they were planning on going through the back alleys and coming up behind Emma.

Probably not. Emma didn't think they had the courage for it, but she changed position to where she ought to be able to see them coming and shoot in plenty of time. Unfortunately, it put her closer to Killian, who seemed to take it as a good sign.

"Swan!" he said, breaking out into a smile. "About time. Get this maniac off me, will you?"

Just like that. He expected her to forget what she'd heard, to act as if nothing happened. She remembered a girl she'd known as a teen, Lily, telling her she should be  _grateful_ _Lily’s_ lies and stealing had gotten Emma thrown out by a family she thought might actually want to keep her. Destroying somebody else's life didn't matter if it got Lily what she wanted.

Like Killian.

"What did you do to Belle?" Emma asked.

"What?" Oh, he really did do the wide-eyed, what-are-you-asking-me-for innocence so well. "I didn't do anything! What are you—"

"I  _heard_ you, Killian. You weren't lying to Will. You sent Keith after Belle. Why? What's he going to do to her?" Like she needed to ask to know the answer to that one. No, what she needed was to hear him answer.

"Nothing. Just a good time. I told you, he  _likes_ her. Belle's just uptight. That's all."

 _Nothing. Just a good time._ Oh, she'd heard guys say that before. They heard a girl say "No," and told she was "just uptight." Emma had wound up breaking the arm of a guy who'd said that.  She’d been young. These days, the arm wasn’t what she’d go after.

Scarlet was looking at Killian as though he had murder on his mind. The Knave answered Emma's question, not Killian. "Snotty—" Scarlet started to say, then corrected himself, so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings. " _Notting_ tried to rape Mrs. Gold last night. That's where she got that bruise on her face, the one she was hiding under the makeup."

Rape. Bruise. As bald and simple as that. And the part he wasn't saying, Belle hadn't wanted to tell Emma any of this. Emma might not know everything that had been going on in Belle's head, but she could guess why: she hadn't thought Emma would believe—or wouldn't do anything if she had.

Emma looked at Killian, wondering if she had a point.

Killian's face didn't give anything away. There was no sign of fear or guilt—and no sign of surprise or shock. Nothing Scarlet said was news to him. But, that didn't mean Emma didn't have questions for Scarlet. Maybe this was still some crazy misunderstanding. "And how do you know this?"

Scarlet rolled his eyes. "How the bloody hell do you think? I came along while she was beating him off. And, while we're standing around gabbing, he's making another go at it."

"Killian," Emma said. "Please, where is he? Tell me. You're better than this." Or she wanted him to better than this. She wanted him to make one last try at being better than this. "Where'd he take Belle?”

"Sorry, Swan," Killian said, and he really did sound sorry. But, Emma felt the lie behind it, and something inside of her seemed to break. "No idea." And that was the truth. He didn't know. There was nothing he could to help them find Belle in time.

X

Dark fury burned inside Rumplestiltskin, almost overwhelming him. But, killing Jones—or cursing him to exquisite tortures that would make Jones wish he'd killed him—wouldn't help Belle. If he killed the pirate, Emma would have to arrest him (or try to), wasting time. If he cursed Jones or used magic to escape after killing him, Miss Swan would know the Dark One was back. He would waste more time avoiding her or fighting the bloody hero squad when he still didn't know where Belle was.

He hoisted Jones up, shoving him against the wall. The mask he'd made of Will carried memories of nimble fingers and light-handed tricks. As for Rumplestiltskin, his father had been a cardsharp and a sometimes pickpocket. The spinner might have followed an honest trade later in life, but Malcolm had seen to it his son had learned other skills early on. As a mere mortal, relieving Jones of his belt would have been easy enough. With a touch of magic, the leather flowed out of its loops like water.

Rumplestiltskin slid the leather tip back through the buckle, pulling it tight around Jones' good wrist. While Jones was still sputtering in outrage at Will liberating the belt, he reached into Jones' jacket pocket and pulled out his pocket knife (required issue in the king's navy, good to see the captain had held onto one good habit). A new belt hole had been added and the buckle's prong put through it before Jones could curse him for the theft.

Then, it was just a matter of tying up Jones properly. There was a sturdy looking lamp with an iron mounting hanging over one of the doors in the alley. It was high enough that, even with Will's greater height, he had to toss the other end of the belt over it, then catch the tip on the far side. But, the knot he made only required a few loops before pulling it tight, leaving it out of reach of Jones' best efforts to grab it.

Not that it would matter if he could. Rumplestiltskin wasn't the Dark One for nothing. The sheriff hadn't noticed his quiet use of magic, but Jones wouldn't get free until Rumplestiltskin decided he should. From the time he grabbed the belt to the time the knot was finished, it took perhaps six seconds, still more time than he had to waste.

All the same, he leaned in close, giving Jones one last warning. Maybe he'd even listen to it. There was a first time for everything, wasn't there?

His voice was as soft and as deadly as he knew how to make it. "If any of your friends come back and try to cut you down, tell them Will Scarlet's not known for his magic.  _But—_ " The words that followed were Will's, culled from his limitless knowledge of every action movie ever made, but the sentiments—those were Rumplestiltskin's. "What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If they leave you here, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for them, I will not pursue them. But if they don't, I will look for them, I will find them, and—" Will's humor and Rumplestiltskin's collided. He grinned the mad imp's grin, not caring what it looked like on the Knave's face. "I'll gut the entire pack of 'em. Like fish. Got that?"

Jones' eyes widened. Oh, yes, he recognized those words, even after three centuries. Not that he could be sure, could he? Not even with Will giving him that lunatic smile.

X

Scarlet had told Emma he was "bloody good" at his chosen line of work the first time she'd arrested him. She'd made a snide remark—OK, a lot of snide remarks—about the kind of thief who tried to rob a library before passing out in the middle of the job. Hey, she'd known there was more to it than that. Even if this hadn't been Storybrooke, she knew what it meant when a guy passed out drunk wrapped around the picture of a woman he'd known (since this  _was_ Storybrooke, it had been a picture of the Red Queen torn out of  _Alice through the Looking-Glass_ , but that part was barely worth noticing around here), not that he'd talk about it.

But, this was the first time she'd seen him in action. Killian's belt was off and he was being tied by it to door lamp before he or Emma knew what Scarlet was up to.

Then, being Will Scarlet, self-proclaimed Knave of Hearts, whatever that meant (but Emma would tell any woman who asked to steer clear of a guy who picked that job title), he leaned in close and, in as menacing a voice as he could manage, started quoting  _Taken_.

"Are you done?" Emma asked.

"Depends," Scarlet said. "You got any idea how to find Mrs. Gold?"

Emma wracked her brain. Then, she remembered something David had told about when he'd needed to find Jefferson. If he'd asked her, she'd have told him to draw a line between Jefferson's house and the house of a girl named Paige and start searching along it. But, since Emma hadn’t been around, he'd gone to Gold, and their resident Dark One had had an answer.

"There was a potion Gold had," Emma said slowly. "Put it on something someone owned, and it would lead you to him." She frowned. "We could break into his shop, I guess. But, I wouldn't know how to recognize it if I saw it." Belle would. But, if they knew where to find Belle, they wouldn't have a problem in the first place. "Maybe Regina. . . ?"

Scarlet cursed softly before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bottle. "You mean this stuff?"

Seriously? "Why are you carrying that around?"

Scarlet shrugged. "Mrs. Gold was trying to find a fairy she thought might not have gone into the hat," he said. "I went with her over to the convent. It looked dead useful, so I thought I should hold onto some." He looked at the bottle and cursed again. “And I forgot about it.  Bloody hell.”

He was telling the truth, including the part about the fairy. Emma saw she was going to have to ask a lot of questions when she had the time. For now, she only asked one. "You stole it?"

"Nah, I wouldn't say steal it. More like maybe I forgot to ask to borrow it. The point is, I have it. What have you got of Keith's?"

"Uh . . . nothing. But, we could go to his place, and—"

Scarlet growled—really growled, like a bad tempered lion at the zoo. "That'll take too long. She could be dead, and we're—" He stooped, eyes went big. The answer, whatever it was, had hit him. "Bloody hell,” he said again. “I'm an idiot." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. "Get ready to run. These things move fast."

A twenty. Emma thought about Notting's wallet, empty except for some change, found outside the pharmacy this morning. "You robbed Notting?"

"Did I say that? Anyways, he's the Sheriff of Nottingham, I'm a merry man. It's in the bloody job description." While he was talking, he reached back into his pocket and pulled out what Emma first thought was string, but it turned out to be fishing wire. He wrapped quickly it around the twenty in another, complicated knot and pulled tight. Still holding the wire, he put a couple drops of the potion on the money. The bottle vanished back into his pocket, while the twenty tried to fly away. Scarlet let loose more wire, like a long leash, running after it. "C'mon if you've a mind to," he yelled as he took off after it.

Her first priority was Belle and rescuing her. Like Scarlet, she was afraid they were running out of time.

But, she wouldn't have been Emma if she hadn't noticed things were getting weird. Even for Storybrooke. Again.

_I'm running after a man who's taking his money—scratch that, somebody else's money—for an evening walk. On a leash. And we just left a one-armed pirate tied to a night-light._

The worst thing was she was beginning to forget this  _wasn't_ normal.

Cursing magic and fairytales, Emma ran after him.

X

His house. Rumplestiltskin's stomach fell to somewhere around his feet. Nottingham had brought Belle to  _his_ house—the one place in this whole town—this whole  _world_ where Rumplestiltskin had vowed Belle should always feel safe.

He didn't bother with magic or tricks. He just kicked the bloody door in. No one in the front room. But—

He stopped, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. There were strips of cloth lying on the floor, bits of fabric that had been torn and cut to pieces.

There were spells that required odd bits of cloth, but this matched none of them. He didn’t understand it. This was thin cloth, patterned. In their world, it took a special skill to spin thread that fine. In this world, it took factories with tons of machinery. He could think of dozens—no,  _hundreds_ of uses for cloth like that. None of them explained why it was lying by the doorway to his house. The frayed threads suggested it had been cut or torn. The pattern—

Gods. Oh, gods, no.

The pattern. Belle's blouse, the one she'd been wearing earlier today, had been this pattern. Someone—Nottingham—had taken it and cut it into strips. Bile burned at the back of his throat. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to take the cloth and burn it.

Meanwhile, the bill weaved and floated about, leading him on. He didn't have time to waste here. Belle, he needed to find Belle. The money led off to the side. His den. Nottingham had taken Belle to _his den_.

A list of reasons why Nottingham would have gone there flashed through his brain as he raced to the door. A small room, ground floor, easier to get a struggling victim there than to the bedrooms upstairs—easier and  _quicker._ More time for him to hurt Belle. It was also towards the back of the house. If Nottingham had been worried about anyone looking in the windows or hearing the screams. . . .

Rumplestiltskin charged in, ready to tear Nottingham apart, and maybe the Savior, too, if she tried to stop him. Images from his nightmares flooded his mind. For years, he'd been haunted by dreams of Belle tortured and bloody at the clerics' hands; dreams of his first wife, Milah, and the brutal death Jones had promised her. Three hundred years of knowing Jones lied hadn't been enough to burn those visions from his mind. He burst into the room ready to see any or all of his nightmares come true.

Instead, he came to a screeching halt when he saw Belle pointing a gun at him.

X

Emma was having trouble keeping up with Scarlet. He should have been leaving a small trail of fire behind him, the way he tore through the town. When they reached Gold's house, Scarlet didn't slow down. He bounded up the stairs to the porch, three at a time, and kicked in the door.

 _Kicked it in_. Nobody kicked in doors. No matter what every action movie ever made said, most doors weren't made to just snap open as soon as a shoe hit the wood.

Maybe it was some kind of magic, something Gold left behind if anyone came charging in like a lunatic to save Belle. Maybe it was something of Scarlet's, maybe this was what being a Knave was about.

Or maybe it was just something that happened when houses were put together by a curse that, deep in its heart, really had a thing for over-the-top melodrama.

Emma, breathing hard, ran after him (she only managed two at a time on the stairs). She had her gun out, held down but ready. After all, no point in accidentally shooting the guy you were following, assuming you ever caught up with him.

This turned out to be a good thing, since she almost ran into Scarlet soon as she was through the door. Scarlet was standing still, sizing up his surroundings—No, she realized, not his surroundings. He was staring at some shreds of cloth on the floor. With a blank, almost stupid look on his face.

Emma knew that look. Your brain had all the pieces but it just didn't want to see what they added up to. She had to give Will this. It didn't hold him up for long. She'd managed to catch enough breath to try saying his name when the blood drained from his face. He looked at his magic bloodhound money and where it was trying to lead him. Then, he took off again. She didn't think he'd even heard her. He might not even remember there was a sheriff running after him.

And, that wasn't good. Because, when a woman's clothing has been torn to shreds by the man who kidnapped her, things were getting really bad. And Emma didn't want to arrest Scarlet for murder.

X

"Will?" Belle said. She lowered the gun but still held it ready, not sure if she believed what she was seeing. "Is it really you?"

Will nodded mutely. He let go of a bit of string, and something that looked like a quickly folded butterfly on a string floated away and settled on Keith.

Emma, red in the face and dripping sweat, came in after him, her own gun gripped tight in her hand. "Belle?" she said, as if she didn't quite believe it. "You all right?"

"Sheriff!" Keith yelled, looking up from the floor. "She's crazy! She brought me here and pulled a gun on me. You have to arrest her!"

"Save it,  _Snotty_ ," Emma said. "Killian sold you out. I know all about what you were doing." She pulled out her handcuffs as talked, then walked over to Keith and cuffed him. "You have the right to remain silent," she told him. "If you choose not to exercise this right, anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—although I'm not sure we have any left in town, and you'd be safer on your own than with Gold if he shows up. Maybe you can talk to one online. If you can't afford an attorney and if we can find one who doesn’t want to kill you, we can see about getting one appointed for you. If you—"

"She brought me here!"

X

Belle, standing a few feet away, listened as Emma read Keith his rights as she handcuffed him, wondering if it were really over or if Emma would change her mind and let Keith go.  She began to shake. These were hard tremors, not the tired, frightened trembling from before. She put the gun down on the desk, afraid of it going off in her hands. Will was suddenly standing by her. He pulled his jacket off and slid it around her.

Uncertainly, as if he were afraid of touching her, he put his arms around her. It wasn't the way Keith touched her. There was no demand in it, no hunger from a man who saw her as nothing but a thing. Because of that, Belle leaned close against him. Will's arms tightened around her and, for a moment, she could imagine this was Rumple holding her. She could imagine she was safe.


	19. Dining with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aurora and Maleficent talk.

**Note:** Aurora and Maleficent got a chapter to themselves. Belle and Rumple should be back in their own chapter soon. Just a reminder that Maleficent's background in this is different than it turned out to be in the show and there's a different story behind how she cursed Aurora.

X

"I miss the tea in Hong Kong," Maleficent said, sipping from her cup with a grimace.

"Hong Kong?" Aurora asked. She was still not sure how she had come to be sitting in a booth at Granny's with the source of all her nightmares (or all her nightmares before she'd met Cora and Hook and seen a wraith tear out Philip's soul), much less watching her sip tea while Aurora poked at a toasted cheese-and-tomato-sandwich and a glass of milk. She only knew it had seemed safer than running. Although, if Belle had come in and seen them, she'd probably run. At least, Aurora hoped she had.

"A city in this world. They have excellent tea. Good food, too. Regina has a sense of irony, you see. Or the curse did. I spent twenty-eight years under an enchanted sleep. If you wanted revenge, I thought you might like to know. My dreaming mind, however, spent the time wandering this world. I suppose yours wandered, too?"

"I . . . had strange dreams," Aurora said, her hands clenched. "Snow said she had nightmares. She was trapped in her regrets."

"Hmm, yes. Regina used a modification of my spell, one she stole from the Blind Witch." Modification. Aurora wondered if Maleficent always sounded like this or if she was still enjoying playing a professor. "The Blind Witch was clever, I'll give her that.  She was also a really nasty piece of work." Maleficent looked at little Philip. "I'll spare you the details. But, you don't do things like she did without letting loose a great deal of pain and grief." She looked away from Philip, meeting Aurora's eyes. "I know, I know, I’ve let loose my share.  So, I know what I’m talking about. 

“Lives are about possibilities, opportunities. She caused a great many opportunities to be lost. Lost opportunities are what regrets are made of. So’s revenge. When you do that with magic, well, there’s a reason they say magic comes with a price.  If she hadn't done anything about it, her house would have been saturated with loss, all of it wanting her to pay the price. So, she bound it up in an apple, of all things, storing it as part of the sleeping curse."

Aurora had the bizarre feeling she should make some sort of well-mannered reply, as if this had been a dinner party at her father's castle and Maleficent were a guest seated next to her. This woman was a monster, the boogeyman of all Aurora's young terrors. But, old habits died hard, especially when she couldn't think of anything else to do. "Who was she planning to curse?" Aurora asked with just the right tone of polite inquiry her governess had grilled her so carefully on.

"No one, as far as I know. It was just a way to store up darkness and convince it it was going to be used some day."

"Convince it?" Again polite, again proper. Her governess would be proud.

"For lack of a better word. That kind of darkness cries out to be used the way water wants to flow downhill and lightning wants to strike ground. It wants revenge. Usually on the person who created it, though it can be persuaded to be a bit more . . . blind. Finding a way to direct it is so it doesn't come back and bite you isn't a bad idea, it's just much harder than you'd think. Letting it believe it will someday be let loose and convincing it to wait isn't a bad alternative. Though darkness—most darkness—isn't as aware as I'm making it sound." She frowned. "Or not aware the way you think of awareness. . . . It's hard to explain.

"The Blind Witch was food obsessed. I do wonder about her. All her magic took that form. That apple wanted to be used and it found a way, one that brought her down in the process. Just as well. If she were in this world, I suppose she'd be in treatment for an eating disorder or such. Now, _there's_  twenty-eight years of misery I don't wish on anyone—"

"You mean like the twenty-eight years you wished on me? Or the curse you put on Philip?"

Maleficent put down her tea and leaned back, studying Aurora. "He attacked me, my dear. He seemed to believe he was protecting you, but I was within my rights to retaliate. I meant to keep him as a guard dog for a while before letting him go, but he slipped his leash."

"Oh, you meant to let him go." Her governess would not have approved of that tone, but she wasn't here. "It was Philip's fault that didn't happen. That makes it all right, then."

"I didn't say that," Maleficent said mildly. "I did him harm. I can say it was more harm than I meant, but it doesn't change what I did."

"And me?" Aurora asked. "And my mother and father? I suppose that was more than you meant to do, as well?"

Maleficent picked up her tea again, sipping a bit. She didn't grimace this time. "Oh, I meant your mother all sorts of harm, your father, too. The reasons . . . well, they seemed good enough at the time."

"You enchanted my father," Aurora said, hands clenched again, her knuckles turning white. "My mother freed him and you cursed her for it. When my father freed her, you decided to curse me, too."

"Is that what your father told you? That I enchanted him?" Maleficent's voice was mild, but her hands tightened around her cup.

If that was a warning, Aurora ignored it. "He didn't remember what you did to him, if that's what you mean. But, it's what happened, isn't it? You turned your back on your duty and attacked the family you used to help. Or are you going to say my father attacked you and you had to 'retaliate'? What did he do? Hit you with a fire extinguisher?"

Maleficent, who was managing to calmly sip tea, despite her death grip on the cup, choked. After a moment of coughing, she gave Aurora a delighted look. "You're fitting into this world better than I expected. It's exactly what he would have done, too, if we'd had such things. Your father was always—" She stopped and bit her lip. "We weren't enemies, then," Maleficent said. "Your father and I. . . . He knew the reasons I left my sisters. He didn't disapprove of them. Not then. But, he was made to forget them. I—I won't say it was wrong, making him forget. What I wanted from him would have cost him. It  _did_ cost him. More than he realized it would when he agreed to it. More than I'd realized, too.

"Jaunice, the Yellow Fairy, thought the whole matter was fairy business and that he was better off. She may have been right. He was young and naïve when I knew him. I was older and far more experienced in getting people to do what I wanted. I . . . can't say I didn't—didn't manipulate him. I didn't think I did at the time but, given how things worked out. . . . He would never have married your mother, if things had gone my way. It's not something I was specifically trying to stop. It's just something that wouldn't have happened. And his love for her was strong enough—was  _true_ enough—to break my curse on her. That was when I knew I'd lost. . . .

"You won't believe this, I know, but I'd moved past all that by the time you had your little nap. When that happened. . . ." She gave Aurora a strange look. The princess would have called it sad and wistful from anyone else, but she had no idea what it meant when Mistress of All Evil looked at you that way. The once-fairy went on in clipped, neutral tones. "Regina was going to cast her curse. I'd tried to stop her and I'd failed—I may be a villain but I had no desire to lose the life I had and all my memories just because the Evil Queen wanted to throw a snit fit. I've seen what losing your memories can do and I have  _no_ desire to go through that." Her eyes strayed to Philip. "Believe me, you have no idea what kind of foolish—what kind of _terrible_ things you can be tricked into doing.

"Not that it mattered. I knew early on I wouldn't be able to escape it. But, I thought you might. If things had worked out, you would have passed the curse protected by a wall of thorns, dozing through all this foolishness. The curse would be broken eventually. Like water flowing downhill, it's just another part of their nature. Curses want to be broken. Then, if I hadn't managed to round up your Philip and put him on guard duty before the curse hit, he would have eventually found his way back to our world and freed you. Or that was the plan. Like most things in my life, it didn't work out the way I'd hoped."

Aurora gaped at her. Of all the things Maleficent might have said, this was the most insane—the most  _impossible._ "You were trying to  _protect_ me? You expect me to believe that?"

"Hmm, no, I don't think I would say I was  _protecting_ you. Rather, I was, oh, I don't know, asserting proprietary rights. It's one thing if _I_  curse you or try to destroy your life. It's quite another if  _Regina_  does. Especially after the little tiff we'd had—I'd tried to explain what stupid idea the curse was, and she was not at all appreciative. You're no concern of hers, and she should have known to keep her distance." Her face softened, and she gave Aurora that strange look again. "I told myself I was protecting you," she said. She waved Aurora's protests aside before she could do more than sputter. "I know, I know. But, that's what I told myself. I was—I  _told_  myself I was over being angry with your father. I told myself this was a . . . decent restitution for the trouble I'd caused him."

"What did he ever do to you?"

Maleficent hesitated. "It's a long story. And . . . I don't think it's mine to tell you; it's his."

"He's not here," Aurora said. For a suicidal moment, she was ready to throw her milk at the other woman out of sheer frustration. But, of all the things she could hold against Maleficent, that wasn't one of them. Her father had never explained when he'd had the chance, no matter how many times she'd tried to ask. "There's no one to tell me but you." She sounded pathetic, like a little child.

"And you think you'd believe me? My dear, I tell myself I'm over it, but there were many hard feelings. I . . . didn't get what I hoped for out of our agreement.” She looked at Philip again. “Not really. But, I've come to realize. . . . There was a man I knew in Hong Kong. He was a bit more . . . aware of the dreaming mind following him around. We communicated in our way, became friends. Of a sort. You would have called him a good man, I think. Knowing him made me realize I owe Stefan. For what he did. For what he what he would have done if—if things had gone differently." She grimaced the same way she had over the taste of her tea. "For what I tried to do when he . . . was no longer able to remember our agreement.

"I won't vilify him to his daughter. And, if I tell this story . . . I know what I'm like. I'll be angry. I'll say things I'll regret." She sighed and added, "The Blue Fairy knows about it. You can ask her."

"Oh, that's a safe offer. She's trapped. The Dark One—"

Maleficent waved this aside as well. "Yes, yes, I'd heard. The Dark One's young bride is trying to get them out. She's clever enough to do it, too. Her interests and mine, amazingly enough, seem to coincide in this. I'm as surprised as you are. But, there are one or two fairies I'd really rather not see trapped for the rest of eternity, and it seems we can't get one out without getting all the others. Rather like locusts. So, there you go. Blue will no doubt tell you I was an out an out villain, but she'll be fair to your father."

"And if she won't tell me either?"

Something cruel and malicious glinted in Maleficent's eyes. For the first time that evening, she was the evil enchantress Aurora expected her to be. "If that happens, tell her you know all about Astrid."

"Astrid?"

"Sister Astrid. One of the fairies. Blue named her Nova." Maleficent rolled her eyes. "But, the curse got it right. She really is Astrid. Tell her you know all about it. She'll tell you know  _everything_."

"But, I don't know about it!"

"True, but you should. You've a  _right_  to know. Tell her I said so when I told you about Astrid."

"You haven't told me—"

"If she won't, ask me again." She searched Aurora's face again. "The curse I put on you, it was bad, wasn't it?"

Aurora remembered waking up to Philip's kiss. For a brief moment, everything had seemed so right and perfect. Twenty-eight years of dreaming, and she had never doubted he would comer for her. Then, the wraith attacked, and she saw the world she had woken to. "The curse wasn't so bad. But, after that, I lost Philip. I saw people die and rise up again. . . ."

She didn't know why she was telling Maleficent this. It wasn't really a secret, she supposed, though she wondered if Snow and Emma remembered what had happened sometimes.

For twenty-eight years, Philip had led refugees to a small place of safety. He and a handful of other warriors had fought to keep it safe. When Aurora arrived there, she’d expected them to be angry, to curse the woman one of their greatest warriors had died to protect. Instead, they had welcomed her in. It wasn't the first time Philip had courted death since the curse fell. Many of the people there were only alive because of him. They told her stories of great deeds he had done and wounds he had taken.

They didn't hold it against her that he had died. He might have died for any one of them. She was just the one who had been there when his luck finally ran out.

"They died," Aurora said. "Philip had given everything to protect them, to keep them safe, and they died. A witch named Cora and a sea captain named Hook murdered them all. Cora didn't have a heart. Literally. She had torn it out and hidden it away. She didn't care about the people she killed.

"But, Hook, he was just a man. He'd come there claiming to be just another survivor. They took him in the way they took me. He lived there for two months— _two months_ —sharing their food, their homes, learning their names. And he helped Cora kill them. When they were dead, he hid under their bodies so we could find him there— _he knew them_. Their faces, their names, the stories they'd shared, he knew all of that, and he killed them and pulled their bodies over him so we'd think he was telling the truth. Dead faces of people  _he knew_ —" Aurora was repeating herself, but it was the worst part of what Hook had done. Aurora had seen how little those people had. She had grasped what a great gift their trust was. They knew how close they lived to disaster. A wrong choice—a single mistake—and they and their children would die.

As, in the end, they had.

"They were lying right against him," Aurora said, trying to make Maleficent understand. She thought of the bodies they had moved, getting Hook out, the cold, loose feel of them—the stiffness of death was already wearing off when they'd pulled him out. Mulan said later she should have realized he was lying. No one would have hidden under corpses that long. "He didn't care except it made his story look good.

"After that, Emma got him to help us. She had to threaten him to do it. Later, there was a giant she befriended. He agreed to hold Hook till we were safely away. But, he came after us—he didn't have to. He could have stayed with the giant or—or something. Instead, he joined up with Cora again.

"She captured me. The people she'd killed, she'd torn out their hearts. She was able to—to raise them up. There's an awful show they have here,  _The Walking Dead._  I saw some of it. They were like that. That's what she sent to capture me.

"She tried to make me betray them—Mulan and Emma and Snow. She said she could—could bring Philip back if I did. His soul, it had been sucked out by a creature called a wraith. I. . . ." Aurora stopped, not sure how to tell this part. It had been awful, what happened. She still woke up with nightmares from it.

"I understand Philip is alive," Maleficent said carefully. "If . . . if you did what you had to in order to save him. . . ."

"But, I didn't," Aurora said. Philip had understood when she'd told him. Or he said he understood. "When I refused . . . Hook came to my cell. He said Cora was going to kill me if I wouldn't help her. He—he said he didn't want that. He unchained me, opened the door, and told me to go." She closed her eyes, reliving it. She could remember everything. The damp rock, the smell of the torch lighting the cell, the sincerity in Hook's voice. "Then, he ripped out my heart. He made me go back to the others and—and lie to them. I led them into a trap. Hook locked us in a cave, in Rumplestiltskin's cell—Cora was with him, but he pulled down the lever that trapped us. He was going to leave us there to die. No food. No water. In the dark. When Emma tried to talk to him, he told it was her fault. She'd turned him down, and he wasn't going to forgive that."

Aurora looked at Maleficent. "She let him live when anyone else would have killed him. He was a murderer and a traitor. She left him some place safe, where Cora couldn't go—the only way to the Giants' land was protected by a spell she couldn't get past. Instead, he came after us and joined up with her.

"And, now, Emma trusts him. I know he helped her save Henry. But, how can she forget all he's done? I've barely spoken to her since it happened. I wouldn't know what to say. She has a magic gift that lets her know if people lie. So, how can she believe a word he says?"

"Oh, I can understand that," Maleficent said. "I've known men like that. Women, too. You should have heard Regina in the old days, going on about how everyone was so mean to her and none of it was her fault. The thing is, that's what it looked like to her. I understand she's improved now she's a mother. But, before that, she could be quite selfish. Not that I suppose that's any news to you.

"The thing is, when you only see the world in terms of how it treats you, it's very easy to be a monster, then turn around and say how innocent you are and say everyone else is being mean and unfair." She gave Aurora a wry smile. "That's why I'm not telling you about your father, after all. Believe me, I'd be very selfish when I told the story. That's the other thing about being a monster. Some of us know what we are. We may not always try to be better, but that doesn't mean we have to be any worse.

"Your friend, Emma, probably believes Hook because he's never lied to her. At a guess, he doesn't think he's done anything wrong because he really doesn't think he's done anything wrong. If I—"

Her cell phone buzzed. Maleficent rolled her eyes. "Just a moment. I have to get this." She pulled it out and read a text message. Her eyes widened. Then, she looked at Aurora, smiling predatorily. For the second time that night, she looked like an evil enchantress. "My dear, I've just had the most wonderful news. It seems I have a little business with your sea captain. How would you like to come along? I may need your help."

" _My_ help?" Aurora didn't buy that.

Maleficent rolled her eyes the way Ruby did when she thought someone was being too nitpicky about details. "Your blood, I need some of your blood."


	20. Silence Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Belle talk.

Belle just wanted everyone to go away, but that wasn't what happened. Emma needed statements and pictures—pictures of Belle's torn up shirt (which was dutifully collected as evidence), pictures of the red marks around Belle's wrists where Keith had tied her up, the cut on her throat where he'd held the knife, the bruise on her face, and a dozen other things. She took statements from Will and Belle. Will's was relatively brief and to the point.

"Why didn't you call it in when Keith attacked Belle?" Emma asked him.

He gave her a calm, cold look. "'Cause Mrs. Gold didn't think you'd do anything about it, and she didn't want to make things worse," he told her.

"What?" Emma turned on Belle. "How could you think that?"

Belle didn't want to argue. She just wanted to curl up and rest. Maybe, if she went to sleep, this would all seem like a bad dream when she woke up. But, Emma was demanding answers. People always were.

"I'd tried to tell you before," Belle said. "You never heard me."

Emma opened her mouth to argue before catching herself. She bit her lip and looked embarrassed. Maybe she was. Maybe she was thinking back on the times Belle was talking about and finally hearing what she'd been saying. Or maybe she was just remembering she was supposed to be taking statements, not running a debate.

David arrived partway through with the town police car. Belle was surprised they had one. She didn't remember seeing it before (Will shrugged. "Graham liked to drive it, but Emma deputized her Volkswagen").

David promptly chewed out Emma for not calling it in before she went running off after a criminal. "What if he'd had a gun?" Emma's father demanded. "What if he'd had friends waiting for you? What if you'd been hit by a car while you were running up and down the streets in the middle of the night?" He glanced dismissively at Will. "You think  _he'd_ have phoned it in?"

Will looked offended. "Of course, I'd phone it in, mate. After I found Mrs. Gold."

David put Keith (still protesting his innocence) in the back of the police car and drove off. But, even _that_ wasn't the end of it. Emma demanded they go to the hospital. After some hesitation, Belle gave Will the keys. She didn't trust herself to drive without causing an accident and, angry as Emma was, she didn't entirely trust her either. Belle sat in the back, away from the seat Keith had put her in. She didn't even want to put the seatbelt on, thinking of Keith pawing over her while the strap pinned her down. But, that was stupid. She had a child to protect. She couldn't let stupid fears get in the way of that.

Granny, of all people, was standing there when they reached the hospital. "I called her," Will said, though Belle couldn't think when he'd had a chance to do that. "I figured maybe you'd want someone with you, and they won't let me." He didn't say,  _And you wouldn't want Emma._

She wouldn't. Emma was angry and upset—at herself, at Hook and Keith, at Belle—and, if Emma was in the room with her, Belle would be afraid the whole time of setting her off or making Emma feel more guilty or any of a dozen things that Belle just wasn't up to dealing with, not now, not tonight.

Granny, on the other hand, knew how to wait things out quietly. Or not so quietly. When Whale gave her his I-am-a-superior-doctor look and said, "It's generally not allowed to have visitors in the examination room," Granny glared at him.

"Good thing you know when to allow it, then," she said and marched in alongside Belle.

That was it. Rumplestiltskin would have said something scathing and witty. Granny just informed people of the facts and acted accordingly, not letting anyone get in her way. There was a certain comfort in Granny, like a solid rock in a storm. Granny stood to the side and didn't say anything while Whale checked Belle over and asked his questions about her injuries and what Keith had done.

He didn't ask if she was pregnant, that standard question of all doctor's visits. She knew he was from a world something like this world’s 19th century, when gentlemen just didn’t ask such questions.  Was it was because Whale was shaken by what had almost happened to her too and falling back on old habits? Or was it just because he had Granny's eyes boring holes in him? Belle only knew she was grateful not to have to answer that question on top of everything else.

He did ask about how she'd been eating. "You've lost weight since the last time I saw you," the doctor said. "In fact, you weigh less than you did when you got out of . . . when you got out." Belle tried not to laugh at how Whale's face reddened as he almost said  _asylum_.

 _Yes, Doctor,_ Belle thought.  _Let us all pretend that never happened and that no one in the hospital ever knew that place was there._ She felt guilty the moment the words went through her mind. Whale had been cursed, like all the others. If he'd known the asylum was there—and Belle had never seen him before getting out, so who knew?—it hadn't been his fault if he'd done nothing about it.

"I've been busy," Belle said. "I forget to eat."

"Well, you need to remember," Whale said, trying to look stern and intimidating. Funny, you'd think Frankenstein would be better at stern and intimidating. Maybe Granny put him off. Or maybe Belle was too tired to care. "I want you to schedule a follow-up appointment. And you should call Dr. Hopper. It would be a good idea for you to see him."

Belle nodded.  Now wasn’t the time to argue. She wondered what Archie would say if she told him about the test she’d taken earlier this evening.  She’d have to tell Whale about it, sooner or later. Or Doc. Dr. Frankenstein or one of Queen Snow’s Royal Guard, which would be safer to discuss Rumplestiltskin's child with?

Or maybe she shouldn't discuss this with either of them. Maybe she should get in the car, drive away, and find a doctor who had never heard of Storybrooke or magic. . . .

Not tonight. Tonight, she could barely walk ten feet.

Finally, it was done. Belle was able to get out of the examination robe and into her clothes. Granny handed Belle a doctor's green, surgery shirt. "Grabbed this on the way in," she said. "Thought you'd need it."

Whale made a small noise, maybe agreement, maybe the start of a protest. Granny shot him another glare. "Send me the bill."

Belle stumbled out into the hallway, leaving Whale and Granny behind (she should thank her. Tomorrow. When she could manage it). Will was there, waiting for her. She tried to give back his jacket, now she had a shirt. "Hold onto it," he said. He looked at the red marks on her wrists. "It'll keep you warm." And the sleeves would hide the marks, she thought.

Belle could see Emma looking at him suspiciously, like a sheriff watching a self-admitted thief. Maybe she was trying to figure out a way to arrest him for the shirt Belle was wearing.

Belle thought of Will and Keith and everything else that had happened today. Logically, she shouldn't trust Will, either, she thought. After all, why had he been hanging out Storybrooke's Main Street last night, waiting for the last shop to close?

But, she did trust him. Maybe not enough to let him work the register in the store or handle the money at night, but she trusted him enough to be grateful instead of afraid when he offered to drive her home.

X

Rumplestiltskin drove back to the house. Belle leaned forward in her seat the whole way, eyes closed and fingers against her temples and over her eyes. She'd taken a deep breath and sat in the front on the way back. Doing the brave thing, he thought.

He should have gotten her to sit in back. He could have made a joke out of it, said he'd always wanted to play chauffeur. That was one of Will's curse memories. Supposedly, his father had been a chauffeur to some rich lord back in Britain—or had been till Will made off with the family silver.

Or maybe Belle was right.  This was her car, now.  She wasn’t going to let a piece of scum scare her away from what was hers.  Or she was trying not to. 

The leather jacket fell back from her wrists. Rumplestiltsin could see the red marks again. He wanted to reach over and make them vanish as if they'd never been there. He also wanted to make every man, woman, and child in Storybrooke look at them and see what they had let happen to Belle while they went blindly about their lives, never seeing what has happening to her.

The way he hadn't seen what was happening. A few minutes either way last night and he never would have seen Keith attacking her. He would have kept walking and never known. If Hook didn't have such a big mouth and a need to gloat, Rumplestiltskin wouldn't have known where to look for her tonight. He might have just thought Belle needed to take a walk, to clear her head. He might have thought he should give her some space and time and not even _bothered_ to look for her.

 _Zelena,_ the memory hit like poison. It always did.

 _I know,_ he wanted to tell Belle.  _I know what you've been through. I know how you're feeling when places that should be yours, that should mean safety and security feel like traps closing in on you._

But, he didn't say it. It wasn't something Will would say.

Instead, he drove to the house (his house, her house,  _their_ house? He didn't know how to think of it anymore). It didn't occur to him till he was getting the car door for her that maybe this was another place that didn't feel safe anymore. Keith had attacked her once by the shop and had been waiting for her outside the library. This was where she'd fought him off, where there were weapons and tools she could use against an attacker. But, maybe Belle didn't see it that way.

She sat there, eyes still closed, hand against her temples. It took Rumplestiltskin a moment to realize she didn't seem to know they'd arrived.

"Belle?" he asked uncertainly. He hadn't called her Mrs. Gold. He wasn't sure if she'd noticed.

She put down her hands and shifted her legs out of the car but hesitated, as if she were gathering her strength, before pulling herself out. Rumplestiltskin offered her a hand and helped. Or not so much helped as lifted her out. She was too weak, he thought, weak and tired. He wanted to pick her up and carry her into the house and not force her to walk the rest of the way. But, he could imagine how she'd react if he did. She might trust Will Scarlet now, but she wouldn't if he pulled that kind of stunt.

"Is the house OK?" he said, walking alongside her, letting her lean on him (he could do that much for her). "You want the library instead? Or maybe the Pawn Shop? Or Granny's?" Granny's, where she would have two wolves guarding her door. And he could ask Maleficent to spend the night in one of the other rooms, if he could just figure out a way to let Belle know a dragon was looking out for her as well. . . .

"This is fine," Belle said listlessly.

He had to tell her. He knew that.

 _Not now,_ a part of him argued. A better moment, that's what he wanted, a moment when Belle didn't sound so close to being broken, when even the truth might finish the job and crush her. But, it didn't look like he was going to get one. Looking back, his best moment had probably been when he punched Keith and dumped him in the alley. Everything since then had been downhill. The rate things were going, Belle might be in hospital and on life support if he waited much longer.

"Belle—Mrs. G, there's something I need to tell you."

Belle might be almost too tired to stand but she stopped and somehow managed to dredge up a look of polite curiosity and patience instead of telling him to drop dead, she'd had all she could take tonight.

"A couple days ago—the night before I showed up at your shop—I. . . ." How to say this? He didn't want to lie to her—he  _wasn't_  going to lie to her—but he didn't want to club her over the head with the truth, either. ". . . . I made a deal."

Oh, she got that. In Storybrooke, everybody knew what that meant. Still, she asked, "A deal?"

"I got . . . contacted. Gold found a way to get a message through." Not a lie. Third person wasn't a lie. If she thought he meant a phone call, was that his fault? She knew calls could get through to the town. Rumplestiltskin had been chatting online with her earlier, pretending to be an Oxford Don (and trying to hold a conversation with Maleficent while pretending to be Will Scarlet pretending to play Pac-Man at the same time. Good thing no one expected Will to pay much attention during a conversation—and even better that making the words he needed to type appear magically on the screen was so easy it made altering security videos in the sheriff's office look hard).

The words could have been magic, the way Belle transformed. It was like life had been breathed back into her, it was like black clouds on a moonless night suddenly parting to reveal the North Star and safe travel home. "He's alive? He's all right? He—" And, just like that, the light went out. Her face fell. "He didn't want to talk to me."

He felt like he'd stabbed her. "Belle, no. I—he—Gold—" He should tell her. No, he still needed to ease up to it. The truth, then. Just not all of it. "He's scared. You needed him, and he let you down. He figured you wouldn't want to talk to him."

Belle shook her head. "Is that what he said?  _I_  betrayed  _him_ , Will. What I did to him—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. It was bad. He's over it, all right? You think he doesn't feel rotten about what he did to you? Bloody hell, when you threw him out, he just had a couple bad weeks over the town line. I've had camping trips that were worse. When he threw you out, you spent a couple years in her majesty's house of horrors and twenty-eight years in the asylum. In solitary. With no memories. You're still way ahead of him on this game."

"It's not the same!" Her eyes flashed like blue lightning. He'd have felt bad if it hadn't felt so good to see some energy in her again, even if she did look like she wanted to hit him. " _Regina_ did those things to me, not Rumple! Rumple never hurt me, he never betrayed me, he—" She stopped, crumbling down onto the front steps of the house. "I turned on him. I told him I loved him and I turned on him."

"So, tell him you're sorry," Rumple said, making use of Will's bluntness. "Sign up for couple's counseling with Archie. Take turns reading some of those relationship books in the library to each other. Do something besides beating yourself up over it."

"I can't—"

"Yeah, you can. Look, Belle, I told you I'm not giving up on my wife and me. I thought she was  _dead._  Do you—well, yeah, you know what that's like. The fates don't always send clear messages much, y'know? Most days, there aren't big road signs. Turn left and see your marriage blow up in your face. Turn right and get magically chained up and have to grant idiot wishes that get kids killed." The image of Will's friend, Lizard, the young girl killed by a badly chosen wish ( _I just wish you could feel something for me_ ), mixed with images of Bae lying dead in Storybrooke's forest. She'd been a child, only a little older than Bae when Rumplestiltskin first lost him. He remembered the soft brown of her eyes staring blindly at him, so very much like his son's.

No, that wasn't what he needed to think of, not now. Belle was the one he was trying to reach. "But, sometimes, you've got flashing neon signs. You've got the fates doing song and dance numbers with a full orchestra, strobe lights, and fireworks at the end. It's so big, it makes Regina's fashion sense look subtle. You guys found each other after Ogre Wars and him thinking you're dead and you  _knowing_  he's dead and two wicked witches locking both of you up. And you've still got a chance. Take it. Talk to him. If it works out, good. If it doesn't, you won't be carrying this guilt around anymore."

"How?" Belle whispered. "How do I—did he give you a number where you can reach him?"

"Uh. . . . I can do one better than that. You didn't ask why he contacted me."

Belle shrugged. "To get the dagger, I suppose. That's why you were hanging around the shop when Keith came by, weren't you? He wanted you to steal it."

Well, he had wanted to marry the smartest woman in the land. He couldn't complain that he'd done it. "Not—not exactly. And, if you think I was robbing you, why aren't you throwing stuff at me?"

Another bleak, lifeless shrug. "It's his. I should never have had it. Do you see anyone else walking around with magic charms that make the people they love obey them?"

"That sounds like 'Does this make me look fat?' There's no right answer a guy can give to that question. And it's beside the point. That's not what Gold wanted when we met up. He, uh, was going to take care of that himself.” _Had_ taken care of it.  But, like he’d said, it was beside the point.  “Remember when we talked about paper masks? Gold wanted to make one. He wanted three drops of heart's blood so he—so I—he wanted to make a mask. A Will Scarlet mask. One that would let him talk with Will's voice and say stuff Will would say and all that."

Her eyes widened. Oh, she  _was_ smart, the smartest woman in Storybrooke. She knew exactly what was coming.

So, he didn't explain anything else. He just reached up and pulled the mask off. Once it was off him, it looked like paper, yellowed with age, strips of it with writing he was fairly certain Belle couldn't read (although he could never be sure with Belle what she didn't know). The writing was red, because three drops could be spread an awfully long way if you knew what you were doing.

Not that it mattered. The mask wasn't what Belle was looking at it.


	21. Truths Heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rumple and Belle talk. So do some other people.

Rumplestiltskin would have been content—mostly—to have the conversation on the front steps, even if it meant the neighbors might look out and see him sitting there. That was assuming they recognized the man in the casual, ill-fitting clothes as Mr. Gold.  It implied too much, he thought.  It was her home, now, not his.  Broken door or not, that was a boundary he didn’t mean to force his way across.

But, Belle felt vulnerable, out there in the dark. She was the one who led him inside, though she looked around uneasily after stepping over the threshold. Her eyes were on the floor where the torn up bits of her shirt had been found.

“Do you want me to secure the door?” Rumplestiltskin asked.  “I could put a spell on it.  Or just drag a chair in front of it.  Whatever you’d like.”

“A spell would be fine,” Belle said.  She didn’t look at him, her eyes darting around the room, a hunted animal looking for escape.  He hoped it was the memories and not him stirring that fear in her.

"We could talk in the parlor?" Rumplestiltskin suggested. Not here—and not his den. He wondered if Belle would ever be comfortable in that room again. He was ready to burn his desk, the room, and every bottle of scotch in the house if it would make her feel better.

He was ready to go away and never come back if it would help her. Rumplestiltskin tried not to look at the ugly shirt hiding Belle's too thin frame or think of the child growing inside her. He would go back to New York and panhandle for half-empty beer bottles and cigarette butts if that was what Belle needed.

They sat down on the sofa. He thought about fetching tea but was afraid to leave her alone, as if she would vanish or break into pieces if he stepped away for even a few seconds. He could just wave his hand and make tea appear but, despite the door, he didn't think Belle would appreciate a show of his magic in the heart of her home right now.

They didn't talk about the big things, not at first. Rumplestiltskin told Belle about the mask and how he'd made it. He mentioned one or two things about New York and some things about how he'd come back, downplaying any hardships.  It hadn’t been _that_ hard, not compared to Ogre Wars and the long trek home on a shattered leg.

Of course, he’d had more hope, then.  His wife, the son the seer had prophesied for him.  He’d thought of them each time the pain seemed to be too great on that long journey, all those centuries ago, pushing himself just a little farther.  Memories of Belle, of family, had haunted him on this trip, too, but thinking of them hadn’t made it any easier.

But, that was past.  And not worth bringing up.  And it was all his fault, not something worth mentioning to Belle, not now.

Other things, thought, he wasn't quite sure how to bring up, like how he'd gotten what he needed for the mask and why no one had seen more than one Knave of Hearts wandering around the city.  Belle, being Belle, just asked. "So, where's Will?" Not,  _What have you done with him?_  or  _Is he alive?_ She trusted him that far—or she'd gotten much better at hiding suspicion, after what he’d done to her.

"Back in Wonderland," Rumplestiltskin said. "With his wife, Anastasia." He looked at the mask in his hands, wondering if he should give the reassurance she hadn't asked for. "I had to play fair with him to make this," he told her. "It carries memories, bits of his life—or reflections of them," he added hastily in case she thought he had literally taken those from Scarlet, stealing away all his memories of family and friends—of the woman he loved.  He needed Belle to know, no matter what she thought of him, no matter how he’d let her down, there were some things he wouldn't do.

"He still has the originals," Rumplestiltskin went on. "It had to be that way. You don't want to wear a mask like this made from the memories of someone you've—" he wouldn't say  _murdered_ , "—someone you've harmed."

"Could you kill a man and make a mask some other way? One that wouldn't hurt you?" Belle sounded tired and disinterested. The question might have been nothing more than a stray, weary thought. Except this was Belle, and she wouldn't ask something like this unless she cared about the answer, even if she seemed too exhausted right now to know that she cared.

He remembered Dr. Hopper telling him that honesty was the only way. He still doubted the cricket knew as much as he thought he did, but—but—

Belle looked so fragile, he was afraid the smallest lie would break her—or break the slender trust that seemed to holding on between them. He remembered being a child and thinking he could safely touch a cobweb if he only did it gently enough, but they were always destroyed as soon as his finger brushed against them. He was afraid he could destroy what was left between him and Belle with a single breath or a badly spoken word.

So, he gave her the truth. "There are masks like that," he admitted. He didn't give her the details. Making _those_ masks was a grisly process and not one he'd ever resorted to. "They have their own price. I never felt like paying for one."

"Did you send him through with something from the shop? Was—was Will the one who hit Keith? Or was that you?"

"It was me. The mirror—it was a magic mirror that sent him home—was in Maleficent's cave, beneath the town. Regina might have had some idea of using it to keep an eye on her, not that she was able to use Sydney that way in this world."

"Maleficent. You brought her back, didn't you?"

"You might say she brought me back. Part of her was alive outside of Storybrooke. Once I found her—she was in the basement of the New York Public library—we were able to work together to come back. How did you know about her? She didn't bother you, did she?"

Belle shook her head. "Aurora saw her."

And, knowing Belle, she was more worried about Aurora than about herself. "Maleficent won't harm her," Rumplestiltskin said quickly.

She searched his face. "Would you care if she did?"

He heard the currents under that question, loud and clear. Would he sacrifice Aurora the way he would have sacrificed Hook? The way he had sacrificed the fairies and had come close to sacrificing Emma?

He didn't know the answer to that, not anymore. But, he gave Belle what he could. "She won't hurt her," he assured her. What he was about to say was Maleficent's secret, but he thought Belle had a right to it. If Maleficent disagreed, she could talk to him about it. "Do you know how a fairy loses her wings, Belle? How Astrid, the fairy your friend, Leroy, loves, almost lost hers?"

Oh, he loved it when her eyes went big like that. He loved being able to surprise her, too. "You're saying . . . Maleficent loved someone?"

Rumplestiltskin nodded. "Stefan, Aurora's father. Till someone cast a spell that made him forget."

He expected Belle to look stunned at that announcement, and she did—but only for a moment. Then, she nodded her head, fitting it together and taking it one step farther.

"You gave Snow a potion that made her forget Charming."

"This wasn't my work, it was the fairies. And a crude job they made of it, too. It just erased the time from when Stefan began to fall in love with Maleficent to the time he woke up and found himself visiting his uncle's castle. They told him Maleficent had held him prisoner and he'd been freed. If he ever suspected the truth. . . ." Rumplestiltskin thought of waking up in the darkness in Zelena's cage when the second curse was cast, with no memory of the past year, though he could feel some of the injuries Zelena had left him with. Even in his madness, he'd suspected enough of the truth before the witch came to check on him and confirm it. He tried to imagine waking up, seeing the same signs and marks, and being told by people he trusted Belle was the one who had put them there—and having no memories of Belle to tell him those were lies. Not that Maleficent had done that to Stefan, not that Rumplestiltskin had heard.  On the other hand, the Yellow Fairy never missed a trick. 

Well, it didn’t matter.  Only one thing did.  "He never knew he'd wanted to be with her."

"Did he?" Belle asked. She was toying with the hem of the shirt they'd given her in hospital, to replace the one Keith had taken off of her.  Had Maleficent done to Stefan what Keith had tried to do to her? And what Zelena had done to him? That’s what she was asking.

"I think they did. I met them, once. Curiosity has always been my besetting sin, and it's not often you hear of a fairy quitting the sorority. I pretended to want a deal, said I wanted information on the yearly pickup of fairy dust. Maleficent told me to stuff it, as I recall. She wouldn't betray her sisters, not then. When I pretended to be all menacing and evil, Stefan drew his sword on me." He grinned at the memory. "You would have loved it, Belle. Prince Charming couldn't have done better, the brave, little princeling facing off against the evil wizard.

"Yes, they loved each other. It may not have been strong enough for what happened after, but they really did love each other."

She looked at him, her eyes full of sadness and loss. She was broken, he thought. His beautiful Belle was broken. "Then, why wasn't it enough?" she asked. "Why did they lose everything, if they loved each other like that?"

He heard her unspoken question:  _Why did we?_

"I don't know. Stefan was told lies and he believed them, even after he should have been questioning them. Maleficent was angry. She struck out at everyone, even though it only made things worse. I don't know if different choices would have saved them."

"I was angry with you," Belle whispered. Her voice was cobweb-light. "When I sent you away. I was hurt and angry and I didn't stop to ask questions or let you answer them. And what I did to you—I'm sorry, Rumple. I'm so sorry."

"I lied to you," Rumplestiltskin said. "Why should you have listened? Why should you have trusted anything I said?"

Her face spasmed with pain. "Because I had the dagger," she whispered as if each word burned in her throat. "Because I didn't have to give you a choice about telling me the truth."

He felt as if each word were a wound he'd given her. He reached out, putting a hand tentatively on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Belle shook him off. " _Don't,_ " she said. "Don't you dare apologize for what I did."

"I hurt you, Belle. I never meant to, but. . . ." He thought of the pain of a long journey on a shattered leg.  He thought of the worse pain of Milah’s rejection when he returned home.  He’d never meant to do that to Belle. _I’m sorry._  The words were weak, inadequate.  But, there was nothing else he could say.  It was his fault for breaking her trust in him, for _using_  her trust in him, as if she were just another tool or potion from his shop, another playing piece on his board. He took her hand in both of his, linking his fingers and bowing his head, as if he were praying, begging the heavens or Belle for the forgiveness—no, not forgiveness.  Begging them to set right everything he’d made wrong.

X

Belle tried to find words. She thought of what her mother used to say,  _Do the brave thing, and bravery will follow._ But, this wasn't about being brave. She thought about Gaston, brave enough to charge at Dark Ones and dragons with nothing but his sword. She and Rumple were trapped in a dark maze, and waving a sword wasn't going to get them out.

Belle's grip tightened around Rumplestiltskin's as his fingers closed around hers. The only way out was with the truth.

Belle thought back to the day when everything had gone wrong. "Do you—do you know why I was angry?"

He gave her that ironic, half-twist of a smile he had when he was amused and hurting. She thought about what it meant that she knew that smile so well. "I thought finding me about to murder Jones had something to do with it. And learning I'd lied to you about the dagger."

"It wasn't," she whispered. "Or—it didn't start with that. It wasn't anything—anything heroic. Or brave. I found the gauntlet. You remember? The one you traded for me." As if he might have forgotten. She felt tears suddenly building up in her eyes and fought the urge to cry. She'd been so stupidly emotional lately. Since he was gone. She put her hands around her stomach. And since other things.

But, she couldn't cry, not now.

"Did you know what that meant to me, then? You gave that up for me. Or I thought you had. Not just gold or a bit of magic. It was something you couldn't replace. Something I knew you'd worked and schemed to get ahold of. Later, I realized it might have been one of the things you hoped would . . ." She thought of Rumple's centuries long quest and how it had ended. Her voice fell to barely a whisper. ". . . would help you find Bae.

"I thought you'd given all that for me. But, you hadn't." She looked at him, not sure if she should ask the question burning in her throat, not able to hold it back. "Was any of that real? Was it just a trick, a joke? Having them kidnap me, threatening to kill me, just so you could show up and pretend to save me? Was that all it was?"

She was crying. She'd promised herself she wouldn't, but she could feel the tears burning down her face. Then, Rumple's arms were around her, and he was pulling her close. He smelled different, she thought. When she'd met Will Scarlet, he's smelled of aftershave and the distinct smoke-and-drinks scent that clung to anyone who'd passed through The Rabbit Hole. Now, he smelled the way he had in the Enchanted Forest, leather and fire and a wild tang she had always thought of as magic. It was comforting and familiar.

But, this was also like the time he had held her after she had used the dagger on him. What she'd thought was the dagger. Did it matter if it had been real or not? Did it make what she’d done any less a betrayal? He had forgiven her even though she had used him—tried to use him—the same way Zelena had.

Her betrayal had been real, even if the consequences weren't. Did that make his forgiveness any less valuable? Any less precious? Any less  _real?_

"It was real," Rumplestiltskin said. "What they did, what they threatened. And giving them the gauntlet, that was real, too.

He moved back so he could look her in the eyes, searching her face like a man desperately looking for something he had lost, begging her to understand. "I couldn't let it stand, what they had done. Belle, I  _couldn't._ "

"You . . . broke a deal?" It was the one sure thing everyone knew about Rumplestiltskin. When he made a deal, he kept it. Maybe in his own, warped way—and always with a fine attention to small print—but he  _kept_ it.

"We didn't have a deal," he said, voice rough and angry. "They tried to blackmail me with your life—your  _life_ , Belle. If I let that stand, how long before they tried again? Or someone else heard the story and tried in their place? When we found Robin Hood robbing my castle, he put an arrow through me. What if I hadn't been there? What if you'd been alone when he broke in and you were the one he attacked? Gods, Belle, what if the next thief to try robbing me  _had_ murdered you?"

"But. . . ." she still felt hollow inside when she thought about the gauntlet. It still  _felt_ like a betrayal, like a lie. "You didn't tell me. You let me think you'd given it up to save me."

"I know." He bowed his head again, his hair falling into his eyes for a moment, hiding them. Then, he looked up, letting it fall back and meeting her gaze. "I . . . cared about you. Even then. Maleficent and her friends thought you were . . . just another bauble. A jewel in my collection. Maybe worse. A toy. An ingredient for a spell. And I let them think that. But, if I'd told you . . . I always have a hard time lying to myself when I'm with you."

"I . . . think I understand that, now," Belle said. "I didn't before. But . . . I am so tired of doing everything alone and it never being enough. I'm tired of feeling like each day is harder to get through than the last and knowing there's no one to help me. Even if they wanted to, there's nothing they can do.

"I want to stop being angry with you. I want things to be the way they were before. To trust you and know you'll always be there for me.

"But, I want to stay angry, too. I know I hurt you. I know what I did was wrong. But, I remember the way I hurt when I found you in the tower, when I knew how you'd lied to me—worse, how you'd  _used_  me—and it hurts all over again."

"Can we try?" Rumple said. "Can we . . . I don't know, go to Archie for marriage counseling? I promise not to turn him into a snail. Or a cricket. Or anything."

She had to laugh, he looked so desperately sincere. "I want to," she said. "I want to start over. Or—or start from where we're at. I don't want to—to forget the mistakes we've made. But, maybe we can still find our way back."

"I want to try," Rumplestiltskin said. "Whatever it takes, Belle, I want to try."

He drew her close again, his arms circling around her. She felt so safe when he held her like this. It made her want to give up all her fears and trust what she felt could last forever. But, they needed more than that. Belle wasn't certain what it was they needed, but it was more than what they'd had before. It wasn't enough, not yet. She knew it wasn't enough. All the same when Rumple kissed her and the distance seemed to vanish between them, she could believe that it was.

X

Killian had been tugging on his belt for what seemed like hours, not that he could check his watch (not that people in this world seemed to use watches that much, but Killian had picked this one off the captain of one of the first ship's he'd sacked and had a sentimental streak for it).

If it hadn't been for the look Scarlet gave him when he threatened to gut anyone who cut Killian down, he might have ignored what the thief said. It wasn't exactly an uncommon threat. All right, there'd been the  _way_ he said it, not quite the crocodile's mad way of speaking, but similar.

Still, it was that  _look._  It was too knowing and mocking. Scarlet knew what he was saying and he knew how it would sound to Killian. Whatever was going on, it was time for Killian to lie low until he knew more. He'd win Emma back after that. It wasn't like she hadn't caught him in a few bad moments before. He'd been able to talk his way past it. He just needed to get away before Scarlet—or whoever had taught him what to say—got back.

But, to do that, he had to get loose. To get loose, he had to get his hand out of his belt. But, so far, nothing he did put a dent in it, and none of the guys from The Rabbit Hole had been back. He'd even tried pulling himself up to gnaw on the thing, but all that had done was give him a toothache and a numb hand.

That was when two women came walking into the alley.

One of them looked like she might be as old as the crocodile but without the advantage of magic keeping her wrinkles at bay. The other was much better, at least by the alley's dim lights. Good curves, nice hair, and what looked like unwrinkled skin from here. On the downside, she was carrying a baby in one of those silly, strap on carriers he'd seen women use in this world. But, the old woman looked like she had a free pair of hands. She ought to be able to watch the brat for a bit. . . .

Except Killian had more immediate worries. He gave them his most charming smile, hoping they would be able to see it. "Ladies! How lovely to see you! And how fortunate. I seem to find myself in a most embarrassing predicament and wonder if I might beg a little of your time?"

"Well, well," the older woman said. "Would you look at this, my dear? How  _completely_  unexpected. Did you have  _any_ idea when we started down this alley that we would find  _anything_ like this? My goodness, he looks like a  _codfish_  hanging in the market."

Killian decided he didn't like the older woman, but he gave an appreciative chuckle. "Oh, yes, very amusing. My mates and I had a bet that I could get myself out of this and beat them to The Rabbit Hole for drinks. They, er, seem to have forgotten me."

"Oh, I  _see!_ " the old woman said. "Of  _course._  I  _quite_ understand. They made a bet and, being high-spirited boys—wouldn't you think they were high-spirited boys, my dear?" she said to the younger woman before plowing on without giving her a chance to answer. "Being high-spirited boys, they decided to, er, leave you hanging. Perhaps we should be on our way? We wouldn't want to interrupt your fun and games."

"Oh, er, you know how it is," Killian said. "They've probably forgotten all about me. If you could just get me down from here. . . ?" He tried very hard to look charming and piteous, shooting a few glances at the younger woman.

"Oh, that quite wrings my heart!" the older woman said. Killian gritted his teeth. She had the most annoying voice. But, she was coming close, and that was all that mattered.

Except that the woman stopped short, putting a wrinkled hand to her chest. "Oh, my stars! Captain Jones! My dear, our poor codfish is Captain Jones! You remember Captain Jones, don't you? Captain Jones, we haven't been formally introduced, but I believe you met one of my godchildren—I say godchildren, but my sister, Jaunice, was the godmother. Poor Jaunice. I'm afraid she's gone, now. Such is the way of this world—and most other worlds, I suppose. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And, you, poor Captain! Didn't I hear how  _you_  were almost reduced to dust? A sad, sad state of affairs. Not that I can't relate. There are days when I felt as if I were little more than a pile of cold ash, myself.

"But, Jaunice is gone, and I feel a certain obligation to stand in her place in this matter, not that it isn't a tad awkward. But, sometimes, one must simply rise to the occasion. . . ."

She was obviously senile. Killian needed to get the younger woman talking to him or he'd be hanging here till next summer. "Goddaughter. Would that be the lovely lady standing beside you? Good evening, madam. Have we met before? I'm Captain Killian Jones—"

"I know who you are," the woman said in arctic tones.

 _Uh-oh_. Killian tried to look delighted. "Princess Aurora! It's wonderful to see you. I don't suppose you could give a hand to an old comrade-in-arms?"

"Comrade-in-arms? You tried to kill me."

"What? I never—"

"You locked me in a hole without food or water, then left me to die."

"You got out of it, didn't you? I knew you would. I just let Cora think—"

"Don't insult our intelligence," the old woman said, her words clipped and cold. "That cage held Rumplestiltskin himself. You didn't expect her to get out."

Killian licked his lips. All right, time to play a bigger card. "The man who tied me up is working for Rumplestiltskin." It was a good theory, anyway. "You know what the Dark One did to me. He's evil. He—"

"He what?" Aurora demanded. "Tore out your heart? And then what? Did he make you lead your friends into a trap? Did he betray everyone in this town to a heartless witch? Or help a pair of murderers plot to kill everyone in Storybrooke?"

"I gave your heart back!"

"Oh, that's right. In the middle of a fight, you tossed it to a warrior who felt honor bound to protect my life at all cost, something you might have heard in the two months you'd lived in the same village as her. Not that I can ask anyone from there. But, you know that, don't you? You were there when they died."

"It's not like I had a choice. Cora—"

"A choice? I would have died before betraying one soul to Cora. You couldn't do that for a hundred."

"She'd have killed them, anyway! What difference would it make?"

"What difference would it make? You'll never know, will you? You'll never know if you could have saved any of them. If nothing else, when they saw their husbands and wives and children slaughtered, they wouldn't have died knowing it was because they risked their lives to trust you, to  _protect_ you, you—you  _coward!_ "

"I'm no coward, princess. Cut me down, and I'll show you."

Aurora pulled out a knife. It had a golden hilt and a white, steel blade that glittered in the moonlight. "Oh, you want me to cut you down?"

"Gently." The older woman caught Aurora by the arm. "We discussed this."

Right, don't try to smooth talk the princess. Killian turned his attention to the older woman. "Thank you, madam. I, uh, may have had some misunderstandings with the princess here, problems I am anxious to set right. If you would just give me a chance to prove my sincerity? And cut me down? I assure you—"

She laughed. It was a deeper sound than he would have expected from such an old woman, both smooth and rich. "Handsome but quite brainless. Such a pity. My sister was the princess' godmother—her fairy godmother. Do you have any idea who I am?"

"Your . . . what are you talking about? All the fairies went in the hat."

"Not all of them. Two escaped." She carried a large purse slung over her shoulder. Reaching in, she pulled out an egg shaped paperweight with a small figure inside. "This is Sister Astrid, as she's known in this world. Unfortunately, Reul Ghorm is the only one who can undo this spell, and she's in the hat. But, there's one other fairy, myself.  Technically, I am what my sisters call “fallen.” But, we're in no position to be picky, are we? And I can get her out with your help, Captain."

"Oh?" Killian eyed the paperweight uncertainly. "Er, always glad to be of assistance. And, after I've helped you?"

The woman shrugged. "Nothing. I won't leave you tied up, if that's what you mean. Don't worry. This won't harm you, though it may inconvenience you for a while."

"Inconvenience me? How do you mean?"

But, the woman ignored him. "Princess, the knife, please?" She held out her hand. Aurora took her blade and pricked the old woman's finger, letting a drop of blood fall onto the paperweight. A faint, rose light began to build inside it.

The old woman examined the results and nodded. "Good. Your turn." Aurora looked at the woman, searching her face for . . . something. Killian didn't know what.

The old woman, however, seemed to understand it. "It's . . . all right," she said. It took her some effort to get the words out. "If—if you don't want to do this, I—I won't make you."

"Is it safe?" Aurora asked.

"I told you everything. It's safe. For you."

"You just told Jones it won't harm him."

"It's true. It won't harm him. Ask Reul Ghorm," the woman added bitterly. "She'll tell you how unharmed Astrid is. But, this won't do anything to you."

Aurora studied her a moment longer. Then, resolutely, she took out the knife and pricked her finger. "Just like old times," she said, letting the drop fall on the egg. The glow turned from rose to pink.

"All right," the woman said, turning her attention to Killian. "Your turn."

"I, uh, think I'd rather not."

"I'm sure you wouldn't."

"If you're a fairy, you're not supposed to harm the innocent."

"I'm amused you consider yourself innocent. But, I'm not that kind of fairy. My name's Maleficent. Perhaps you've heard of me?" She grabbed Killian's handless arm and pulled it down, pushing up the sleeves of his coat and shirt, exposing the skin. "Now," she told Aurora.

Aurora nodded and drew the knife over Killian's arm, letting the blood come out and fell on the egg. It blazed, red and bright, like a ship burning at sea, Killian thought.

And, then, he knew nothing.

X

Aurora was still blinking, trying clear the spots from her eyes, when Maleficent shoved the egg into her hand, reaching down to help the young woman crouched on the ground to her feet.

"Astrid?" Maleficent asked. "You are Astrid, aren't you? Are you all right?"

"I—yes, I'm Astrid. Where am I? What am I doing here?"

Maleficent explained, fussing over the younger fairy, needing to be assured over and over again that she was all right. There was something in her face, something that reminded Aurora of herself when she held little Philip.

Oh, no. That wasn't possible.

Was it?

Maleficent had told her Astrid was half-human, a rarity among fairies. "Rarer than a dwarf falling in love," she'd said. That was why Reul Ghorm had left Astrid behind while the other fairies looked for a way to stop Ingrid's curse, her magic was too unpredictable. That was why she'd needed Aurora's blood after she'd laid the rest of the spell in place on the egg. "If she were pure fairy, mine would be enough," Maleficent said. "But, she's not. That's why I need yours."

It had sounded like only half the tale, but Aurora had agreed. Now, she thought she had the rest of it.

Astrid had her father’s eyes.

"Belle Gold believes she can free the fairies if she has Astrid," Maleficent said. "She couldn't do it with me—part of the price of losing my wings—but Astrid will be good enough." She'd grimaced. "Unfortunately, that means she'll be undoing my work soon enough. Unless you'd like a new paperweight?"

Aurora looked down at the glass in her hand, finally able to make out the details. Instead of a woman, there was a man inside, a man with only one hand.

X

Later, they were lying together in bed. Rumplestiltskin had been willing to take the guest room, but Belle had wanted him here. Much as he wanted to take her in his arms and try to make her forget all the pain that lay between them, he knew that wasn't the answer. After Keith and everything else, he knew Belle felt safer not being alone, that was all. Besides, she was too tired. She'd been asleep before her head hit the pillow.

He held her close,  _willing_ her to feel safe and secure. They were trying. Today. Tomorrow. The day after that. They would keep trying, rebuilding what they'd had, making what they wanted.

He wanted to say something profound, about fighting for her or being brave, maybe about making the right decision. He thought of the Charmings' little mantra, how they would always find each other, but he was hoping desperately not to develop the same habit those two had of always misplacing each other.

In the end, he leaned over, his lips brushing against her temple. "I love you," he said. "No matter what, I will always love you."

Not profound, not deep, certainly not something that would be quoted in one of Belle's favorite books. But, it was the truth, bedrock and solid.

 


	22. A Time to Speak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where loose threads are (mostly) tied up.

Emma had just finished an all night shift when she got the call. She tossed the night log to David and, instead of heading home for some well-earned rest, she headed over to the convent. It looked like they were close to finishing "Project: Free the Fairies" at last.

Sister Astrid was the one who'd named it. Unlike Henry, the nuns had a habit of giving stuff practical, descriptive names (like "The Candle Fundraiser" where they sold candles to raise funds). Emma didn't know if it was a nun thing or a fairy thing. Either way, Henry had protested, trying to talk them into something cooler. He'd wanted to call it "Operation Hammerhead" (there'd been a shark show on TV when he'd come up with it). Astrid, however, had pointed out they weren't trying to keep people from knowing what they were doing. In fact, the less confusion, the better. Emma was pretty sure Henry still had a code book somewhere, but she'd decided not to ask.

When Emma arrived at the convent, Belle was just finishing explaining what needed to be done to Regina. Belle had been up all night in the Nuns' common room marking the floor with different colored chalks and setting up various, spell-y looking things from arrangements of flowers to the skull of something that might have been a giant crocodile if crocodile's came with ram's horns. Astrid had helped, naturally. The part they were doing wasn't magic, per se, Belle said, so Astrid's skill—or legendary lack of it—was a nonissue.

Archie, August, and Marco, who all had their reasons for wanting Blue and her friends out of the hat, had also lent a hand. Will Scarlet, who seemed to be following Belle around like a cross between a lost puppy and a pit bull on guard duty since the night with Keith, was there, too. So was Professor Longneaux, although Emma wasn't sure how she had gotten involved. Maybe something to do with providing magic plant stuff. That seemed to be the only reason for Aurora and Philip to show up. They'd brought a bag of really big thorns (Jefferson’s daughter, Grace, was babysitting little Philip).

Aurora and Philip had come just before Emma. Granny and Ruby came just after with platters of food. Aurora and Philip were quickly recruited to help lay out sandwiches. As Granny said, after weeks in the hat, the fairies were bound to be hungry. As Belle had said (back in the early stage when Emma was still trying to follow Belle's explanations of what this spell would be doing before admitting she didn't understand any of it) food should help anchor them back in this world, "Just in case." Emma still wasn't sure what, "Just in case" covered but figured they were all better off not finding out.

Aurora was probably thinking the same thing. She kept looking uneasily at Belle's work, glancing from Astrid (who, if Emma had understood any of this, had a big part to play) and the professor (who didn't). Emma looked at the professor, too. She seemed tough and maybe a bit intimidating—being around her made Emma grateful she'd never gone to college—but she also looked around a century old. Maybe Aurora was worried about her keeling over from a heart attack if the stress got to be too much.

Meanwhile, Belle and Regina were having an argument. Regina wanted to use Gold's dagger for whatever it was she was supposed to be doing—Belle might have set everything up, but it was going to take an actual witch to cast the spell to get the fairies out—and Regina seemed to think that put her in charge.

Emma tried to intervene. "Belle, we all want to get the fairies out. If the dagger would make things easier—"

"No," Belle said.

"It's not like he's going to notice. It's not like he could even complain if he did."

Belle gave Emma an icy look even Ingrid would have felt. "That is exactly the point," Belle said. "He couldn't complain. You could take the dagger and tell him to murder Henry and laugh while he did it, and he wouldn't be  _able_  to complain _—_ or protest or even hesitate. You might be all right with doing that to him. I'm not."

"You did it before. Anyhow, I thought you were over him." Emma knew it was a stupid thing to say as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Sleep deprivation did that to her.

Belle looked stricken. Then, she pulled her icy reserve back together. "That's correct," she said. Emma hadn't known Belle could do lethal calm like that. "I did it before. I judged a man without even listening to his side of the story. I condemned him without giving him a chance to defend himself, and I did it using a power I wouldn't want over my worst enemy." Belle turned away from Emma and focused on Regina. "So, no, your majesty, we are not using the dagger. Ever." Then, she turned her back on both of them and stalked off to talk to Astrid. A grinning Will Scarlet joined her.

Archie came up beside Emma. He cleared his throat. "You really shouldn't have said that," he said.

"I'm tired," Emma said. "I was up all night—" Things had been tense since the night of Keith's arrest. Hook had gone missing, and some of the roughs who hung out at The Rabbit Hole, mostly friends of Hook or Keith, had been jumpy. Just this morning, she'd gotten a panicked call at 3 a.m. from a drunk who insisted whoever got Hook was coming to get him. Instead, Emma found a tom cat yowling after a female among the garbage cans. If Hook really had been taken by something instead of slipping his hand out of a pretty makeshift trap and going to ground somewhere, the thing that took him was lying low—or maybe it was standing on the sidelines getting a good laugh at drunks hiding under their beds from alley cats.

"That's not the point," Archie said. "Emma, Belle loved Gold. She still loves him. When she exiled him, she was acting in anger and she's regretted it."

"Gold tried to kill Hook," Emma said.

"When you thought Regina had murdered me, you still insisted she deserved due process and a trial—a  _fair_ trial. Belle didn't give that to Gold, and it's been eating her up. But, even if she had, it doesn't change what she felt for him—what she  _still_  feels for him. It doesn't help when other people—people she thought of as friends—dismiss those feelings."

"Are you her shrink, now?"

"I'm not breaking any professional confidences, if that's what you mean," Archie said. "But, if you're really trying to help Belle, remember that she didn't tell anyone about Keith because she thought they wouldn't listen. If you want to be her friend, try hearing what she has to say instead of telling her what you think she should feel."

From Archie, that was as close to screaming outrage as he got. Emma had a sudden, sharp memory of being a teenage-mom-to-be in lockup. There'd been plenty of people willing to tell her what a complete jerk Neal was, and she'd agreed with them—oh, boy, had she agreed with them, in words she hoped Henry never learned.

But, she hadn't wanted someone to tell her Neal was a jerk. Or not just that. She wanted someone to tell her it was OK to cry for hours over a guy who'd been a jerk and left her to take the fall and who she still missed every day. She'd known, if she'd looked at Henry when he was born and saw his father's eyes, she wouldn't be able to give him.

"All right, everyone, we're ready," Belle said. "Astrid, you stand over here. Regina, you're over there. Everyone else, behind the lines on that side. We don't want to mess this up."

Belle placed the hat carefully between Regina and Astrid. Then, she exited the chalk lines, careful not to step on any of them, and came to stand by Emma and Will. "If anything goes wrong, you two get to stop it," she told them. Will grinned. He seemed to do that a lot, as though he were enjoying a private joke with Belle. Belle called out to the others. "You might want to wait outside. It  _should_  be safe. But, if it isn't. . . ."

"We can tell everyone else to run for the town line," Granny said. "Works for me." She and Ruby left. Marco and August followed them. Philip tried to guide Aurora towards the door, but she stayed where she was. "Professor?" she asked. "Aren't you coming?"

"Oh, don't worry about me," the professor said. "I'm an old woman. Besides, I want to see this." She smiled brightly. "It's a once in lifetime event, getting to see Blue rescued from her own incompetence by her worst enemies. Don't worry, I wouldn't  _dream_  of interfering."

Aurora looked uncertain. Her eyes drifted to Astrid. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. Just be careful." Then, she and Philip left.

Emma shook her head, trying to shake off her tiredness. She had a feeling she'd missed something important.

"I've got magic," Emma said, turning her attention to Will and Belle. "But, why are you two sticking around?"

Will rolled his eyes. "It's not  _that_  dangerous. Anyway, remember who I am? Who else do you know who's survived being a genie and taking on a wizard who wanted to change the laws of magic and raise a zombie army? If anything goes wrong, I'm the best bet you've got."

"Actually," Belle said, "I was hoping he'd learn some humility when he has to let you handle it. I'm here because I know this spell. If anything goes wrong, I ought to be able to figure out what."

Will rolled his eyes again. "Not that anything's going wrong. Just sit back and enjoy the show."

Astrid was standing in the middle of one of the chalk circles Belle had drawn. The hat was inside another. Belle watched Regina as she went from one point around the Astrid's circle to another, making certain gestures and saying what Emma could only suppose were magic spell words. Then, she went around the hat's circle, doing more of the same. Emma saw Belle's fingers twitch as Regina made the gestures, following along with what she was doing, and mouthing the spells along with her. Belle kept nodding as she did it, which Emma supposed meant Regina was doing it right.

Then came the big moment. Regina had completed the circuit and was back to where she'd started, the hat between her and Astrid.

Emma wasn't really sure about what happened next. The explosions made it hard to see. There were lots of fireworks and light shows that seemed to dance from one end of the chalk drawings to another, kind of like a cross between dominos and the Fourth of July. This was followed by more lights pouring out of the hat towards Astrid.

Emma raised her hands, hoping she could stop it. But, Belle put a hand on her arm. "It's all right," she said. "This is supposed to happen."

Emma wasn't so sure. But, before she could say anything, even more lights showed up—these came  _out_  of the hat. They began to spill around Astrid—and they grew (Belle still didn't look panicked). They were different colors, blue, green, pinks, yellow, all of them glittering like stars. For a moment, Emma saw strange, glowing creatures, as if a bunch of jellyfish were trying to disguise themselves as Christmas tree lights. Then, the lights faded into the grays, blacks, and dark navy uniforms of St. Melissa's nuns.

The sisters looked around, their faces breaking out into huge smiles amazed relief. There was cheering and a spontaneous group hug that looked like it might threaten the nuns in the center with suffocation. Will, with his third eye roll of the day, opened the back door and yelled, "Hey! C'mon back. No apocalypse today!"

Meanwhile, Emma headed over to the nuns. Spotting Blue, Emma shoved her way through to the Mother Superior. Most of the fairies just looked happy and relieved. Blue looked different, almost . . . afraid. "You all right?" Emma asked her.

"I'm . . . not sure," she said. "Hook," she added, the fear back in her eyes. "Hook put us in there."

"Uh, yeah, we know about that. He was being controlled, and. . . . Uh, it's a long story. Wait a bit. Eat something." Emma pointed to the table Granny and the others had set up. "We've got food. Just in case."  _And you look like you're the 'in case' they were talking about. "_ I think you could use some."

Blue nodded. "Yes, food will . . . help." Emma might not understand magic as much as she should, but she got that pause. Belle had been right. Whatever being in the hat did, food would . . . _help_. Whether that meant help settle the nuns and make them feel a bit anchored in the real world or help keep them from turning into shadow monsters who attacked the town probably didn't matter right now, just that it would help keep it from happening.

"And thank you," Blue said. "For getting us out of there."

"Don't thank me," Emma said. She noticed Regina standing to the side and looking uncertain the way only an Evil Queen who'd had a war or two with every fairy in the room could look. "Thank the—" her tired brain managed to catch 'Evil Queen' and toss it aside before she said it, "—mayor. She got you out of there."

Suddenly, Will was standing by her side giving eye roll number four. "Yeah, Regina did the spell after Belle helped by researching it, translating ten different languages, bullying an Oxford don into helping her, and figuring out all the diagrams and magic stuff the spell needed. Then, she spent the last three days setting it up before coaching Regina through the five minutes of hand-waving she did to get you out. Oh, and Astrid helped, too. She was the anchor the spell needed to pull you out of there."

Emma shot him a glare, pulling him aside, she said, "You mind? I'm trying to encourage Regina when she does good magic. You're not helping."

"I'm trying to encourage Belle when she wears herself out trying to help people who treat her like a doormat and seem to think they're entitled to make her do whatever they want, morning, noon, and night." His eyes widened. "Hey, you're right! I'm  _not_  helping."

"Giving Regina a little credit doesn't mean I'm ignoring Belle—"

"Yeah, it does. Look, I get it. Her majesty isn't killing people every time she has a snit fit. Yay. Good for her. Help keep up the good work. But, Belle gives and gives to you people, and you don't even see it. If you're treating her like dirt because you think Regina's going to go back to ripping hearts out as soon as someone else gets a thank you, you've got bigger problems."

Emma opened her mouth to argue. Then, she thought of finding Belle, bruises on her wrists where Keith had tied her up and blood on her throat where he'd cut her—all because the street smart, cynical, big city sheriff couldn't see trouble when it was dancing in front of her. "Yeah," she finally said. "You're right. I owe you an apology."

"Nah, you don't. But, you owe Belle one. Go talk to her."

X

Rumplestiltskin watched as the sheriff went over to talk to Belle. He'd exaggerated a little. Belle hadn't been wearing herself out  _lately._ For the past week, she'd been careful about eating and almost always got enough rest. But, she'd pushed herself close enough to the edge before that he didn't feel any guilt letting the sheriff know about it.

Over across the way, Astrid was having a discussion with Reul Ghorm. The young sister had a look of firm resolve. He caught the word, "parents," and saw Reul Ghorm flinch before giving a quick, pale-faced nod. Then, Astrid lifted her hand towards her back. Ah, asking about the wings Jaunice had stolen from her as a baby, the ones Reul Ghorm had returned to her as if they were some kind of prize.

Rumplestiltskin, remembering times men had kicked him down in the dirt and thrown his walking staff into the trees, thought he could imagine what it felt like to be a wingless fairy. The men who'd thrown his staff away stood by and laughed as Rumplestiltskin hobbled after it—but, unlike Reul Ghorm, they hadn't expected him to be  _grateful_ to them when he got it back.

Astrid seemed to feel the same way he had about it, although she heard Reul Ghorm out. She also managed not to get angry or rant and scream or swear vengeance. Instead, she mumbled something polite and walked away, finding Professor Longneaux. Rumplestiltskin didn't know what Maleficent had told her—he was almost certain the half-fairy didn't know it was her mother or the legendary dark fairy she was staying with—but she let the Mistress of All Evil put a comforting, motherly arm around her. Aurora looked on, an egg salad sandwich held a few inches from her mouth, uncertain what she should do (and how long before the princess realized freeing the half-fairy had taken a drop of blood from Astrid's fairy mother and a drop of blood from her human father—or, her father being unavailable, a drop from her father's human child? Assuming she hadn’t already).

There was a short, whispered conversation. The professor nodded and went to grab her things, the knapsack she seemed to prefer to a purse and her tweed jacket. However, instead of heading straight back to Astrid, she went over to Emma. "Here," Maleficent said, pulling the glass paperweight out of her knapsack, she dropped it into Emma’s. She’d added some kind of glaze over it, mottled layers of pink and lavender. 

Rumplestiltskin grinned.  The glaze didn’t just hide details, like Hook’s hand.  It looked (there was no other word for it) _girly._ Emma looked at in horror.

“A memento,” Maleficent said. “It looks like a trapped fairy, doesn’t it? I thought it would brighten up your office.”

With that, she walked out, a confused Astrid following after. Aurora, who was in the middle of biting down on one of Granny's sandwiches, looked like she was about to say something but thought better of it and went back to eating.

"Was that something I should worry about?" Archie asked.

Rumplestiltskin shook his head. So far, the cricket had kept his patient confidentiality, but the psychiatrist would have had to lose his mind not to worry what Rumplestiltskin might get up to. "Nah, Emma’ll figure it out sooner or later," he told him.

Archie didn't look wholly relieved but he wasn't running over to the fairies and telling them to attack, either. Rumplestiltskin had once thought trust was as simple as handing a blade back to Belle, but it wasn't. It was built slowly, one step at a time, one moment of  _not_  screaming for help in a crowded room at a time.

Rumple went over to get some sandwiches and talk to Belle. He nodded to the two wolves. The mask's magic was good. Even to a pair of werewolves, he knew he smelled like Will Scarlet.

Of course, he also knew, when the mask was off, he smelled like himself. He'd be surprised if Granny hadn't caught of whiff of him clinging to Belle. He and Belle were still awkward around each other in some ways, but Belle slept better knowing he was beside her at night. He slept better holding onto his wife and child—but not with another man's face.

So far, Granny gave him a watchful civility, whatever her suspicions, and Ruby followed her grandmother's lead. So far, the fact that he was taking care of Belle seemed to be enough for the old wolf.

Two wolves, a dragon, a cricket. Rumplestiltskin knew it was just a matter of time before more people knew he was back. He and Belle had discussed it but they hadn't made any decisions. They could run back home or to another world, like Wonderland. Or there was a clan of vampires in Whale's world who owed him some favors and could probably point him to a decent castle.

Or maybe—maybe there was a way he could still fit in here, a way he could live in the same world as his grandson, a world where he could visit his son's grave.

Happy endings, he mused. He'd heard a saying about them once. Don't say anyone has had a happy ending before they've ended—before they've died. You never know what can wrong before that.

They were a really cheery bunch, the ones who'd come up with that. Though, Rumplestiltskin supposed, they had a point.

But, there were happy moments, times between one crisis and the next. Belle and he were like plants that had been wounded by a cold winter, but they were beginning to put down new roots and grow.

Winter would come again—winter always came again. But, so did summer, he told himself, and he would enjoy whatever time he had Belle had to share in the sun.

End


End file.
